How to get nice formatting in the Rails console

Question

I want to get something like this to look nice:

>> ProductColor.all
=> [#<ProductColor id: 1, name: "White", internal_name: "White", created_at: "2009-06-10 04:02:44", updated_at: "2009-06-10 04:02:44">, #<ProductColor id: 2, name: "Ivory", internal_name: "Ivory", created_at: "2009-06-10 04:02:44", updated_at: "2009-06-10 04:02:44">, #<ProductColor id: 3, name: "Blue", internal_name: "Light Blue", created_at: "2009-06-10 04:02:44", updated_at: "2009-06-10 04:02:44">, #<ProductColor id: 4, name: "Green", internal_name: "Green", created_at: "2009-06-10 04:02:44", updated_at: "2009-06-10 04:02:44">]

This doesn't work:

>> ProductColor.all.inspect
=> "[#<ProductColor id: 1, name: \"White\", internal_name: \"White\", created_at: \"2009-06-10 04:02:44\", updated_at: \"2009-06-10 04:02:44\">, #<ProductColor id: 2, name: \"Ivory\", internal_name: \"Ivory\", created_at: \"2009-06-10 04:02:44\", updated_at: \"2009-06-10 04:02:44\">, #<ProductColor id: 3, name: \"Blue\", internal_name: \"Light Blue\", created_at: \"2009-06-10 04:02:44\", updated_at: \"2009-06-10 04:02:44\">, #<ProductColor id: 4, name: \"Green\", internal_name: \"Green\", created_at: \"2009-06-10 04:02:44\", updated_at: \"2009-06-10 04:02:44\">]"

And neither does this:

>> ProductColor.all.to_yaml
=> "--- \n- !ruby/object:ProductColor \n  attributes: \n    name: White\n    created_at: 2009-06-10 04:02:44\n    updated_at: 2009-06-10 04:02:44\n    id: \"1\"\n    internal_name: White\n  attributes_cache: {}\n\n- !ruby/object:ProductColor \n  attributes: \n    name: Ivory\n    created_at: 2009-06-10 04:02:44\n    updated_at: 2009-06-10 04:02:44\n    id: \"2\"\n    internal_name: Ivory\n  attributes_cache: {}\n\n- !ruby/object:ProductColor \n  attributes: \n    name: Blue\n    created_at: 2009-06-10 04:02:44\n    updated_at: 2009-06-10 04:02:44\n    id: \"3\"\n    internal_name: Light Blue\n  attributes_cache: {}\n\n- !ruby/object:ProductColor \n  attributes: \n    name: Green\n    created_at: 2009-06-10 04:02:44\n    updated_at: 2009-06-10 04:02:44\n    id: \"4\"\n    internal_name: Green\n  attributes_cache: {}\n\n"

Thoughts?

Solution 1

The y method is a handy way to get some pretty YAML output.

y ProductColor.all

Assuming you are in script/console

As jordanpg commented, this answer is outdated. For Rails 3.2+ you need to execute the following code before you can get the y method to work:

YAML::ENGINE.yamler = 'syck'

From ruby-docs

In older Ruby versions, ie. <= 1.9, Syck is still provided, however it was completely removed with the release of Ruby 2.0.0.

For rails 4/ruby 2 you could use just

puts object.to_yaml

Solution 2

You should try hirb. It's a gem made to to pretty format objects in the ruby console. Your script/console session would look like this:

>> require 'hirb'
=> true
>> Hirb.enable
=> true
>> ProductColor.first
+----+-------+---------------+---------------------+---------------------+
| id | name  | internal_name | created_at          | updated_at          |
+----+-------+---------------+---------------------+---------------------+
| 1  | White | White         | 2009-06-10 04:02:44 | 2009-06-10 04:02:44 |
+----+-------+---------------+---------------------+---------------------+
1 row in set
=> true

You can learn more about hirb at its homepage.

Solution 3

Awesome print is nice too if you want an object indented. Something like:

$ rails console
rails> require "awesome_print"
rails> ap Account.all(:limit => 2)
[
    [0] #<Account:0x1033220b8> {
                     :id => 1,
                :user_id => 5,
            :assigned_to => 7,
                   :name => "Hayes-DuBuque",
                 :access => "Public",
                :website => "http://www.hayesdubuque.com",
        :toll_free_phone => "1-800-932-6571",
                  :phone => "[phone]",
                    :fax => "[phone]",
             :deleted_at => nil,
             :created_at => Sat, 06 Mar 2010 09:46:10 UTC +00:00,
             :updated_at => Sat, 06 Mar 2010 16:33:10 UTC +00:00,
                  :email => "[email protected]",
        :background_info => nil
    },
    [1] #<Account:0x103321ff0> {
                     :id => 2,
                :user_id => 4,
            :assigned_to => 4,
                   :name => "Ziemann-Streich",
                 :access => "Public",
                :website => "http://www.ziemannstreich.com",
        :toll_free_phone => "1-800-871-0619",
                  :phone => "[phone]",
                    :fax => "[phone]",
             :deleted_at => nil,
             :created_at => Tue, 09 Feb 2010 13:32:10 UTC +00:00,
             :updated_at => Tue, 09 Feb 2010 20:05:01 UTC +00:00,
                  :email => "[email protected]",
        :background_info => nil
    }
]

To integrate it by default with your irb/rails/pry console, add to your ~/.irbrc or ~/.pryrc file:

require "awesome_print"
AwesomePrint.irb! # just in .irbrc
AwesomePrint.pry! # just in .pryrc

Solution 4

>> puts ProductColor.all.to_yaml

Simply works fine!

Source: https://stackoverflow.com/a/4830096

Solution 5

May also be noted that you can use:

j ProductColor.all.inspect

to output in Json format rather than Yaml

View more solutions

Comments

[Tom Lehman]

ryanb's answer is basically what I was looking for, but this is too cool not to accept.

[jordelver]

While not an answer to the original question, it might be pointing out that you can add the hirb stuff to your ~/.irbrc so you don't have to require and enable it each time.

[botbot]

this should be marked as the right answer since it's built in, can be used immediately, and most of all, simple.

[jordanpg]

This answer is outdated. See: stackoverflow.com/questions/11571801/… To make this work, you have to first execute YAML::ENGINE.yamler = 'syck'.

[Green]

As a matter of fact require 'pp' isn't possible in rails console --sandbox. For some reason I get false when I try to require pp. Oops! it seems that pp is already required by default in rails console. I just did pp Model.connection_handler and got big pretty printed output. Thanks.

[sepp2k]

@Green If require returns false, that just means that the file has been loaded already.

[jumpa]

Its now YAML::ENGINE.yamler = 'psych'

[Crimbo]

This works great! I couldn't get the other top voted answers to work... I guess because I am using ActiveResource (API resources)

[Crimbo]

Nice! But I can't get it to format ActiveResource content... unless I am doing something wrong

[Amrit Dhungana]

This gem is outdated now .

[Deepak Lamichhane]

This is similar to ryanb >> ProductColor.all >> y _

[Todd]

like @botbot said above, this is the best answer since it applies to situations where you ahve no access to an .irbrc, other console tools, or other configurations of the console (like, being a contracted dev with limited access to a production container/server)

[Todd]

this can fail depending on version of JSON/ruby, and the nice formatting may be needed in an environment where one cant have nice things

[MrYoshiji]

Is there a way to "easily" sort the columns of the output? I would love to force the column id to be first and updated_at & created_at at the end (if you add columns after the first migration the updated_at & created_at columns will not be at the end)

[Hassan Akram]

This raise error: JSON::GeneratorError: only generation of JSON objects or arrays allowed

[ltdev]

Can I use this gem with Rails 4 or 5 ?? I've found the following note in the github page: NOTE: awesome_print v1.2.0 is the last release supporting Ruby versions prior to v1.9.3 and Rails versions prior to v3.0. The upcoming awesome_print v2.0 will require Ruby v1.9.3 or later and Rails v3.0 or later. Does this mean that the gem is outdated with these versions and cause conflicts??

[Arnold Roa]

Why the inspect is not displayed when doing just ProductColor.all?

[Eric Guo]

y method coming from ruby and still available in 2.5. irb(main):010:0> method(:y).source_location => ["/usr/local/Cellar/ruby/2.5.3_1/lib/ruby/2.5.0/psych/y.rb", 5]