Ruby: How to make IRB print structure for Arrays and Hashes
Solution 1
You can either use the inspect
method:
a=["value1", "value2", "value3"]
puts a.inspect
Or, even better, use the pp (pretty print) lib:
require 'pp'
a=["value1", "value2", "value3"]
pp a
Solution 2
Another thing you can do is use the y
method which converts input into Yaml. That produces pretty nice output...
>> data = { 'dog' => 'Flemeale', 'horse' => 'Gregoire', 'cow' => 'Fleante' }
=> {"cow"=>"Fleante", "horse"=>"Gregoire", "dog"=>"Flemeale"}
>> y data
---
cow: Fleante
horse: Gregoire
dog: Flemeale
Solution 3
The pretty print works well, but the Awesome_Print gem is even better! You will have to require awesome_print
but it handles nested hashes and arrays beautifully plus colors them in the Terminal using 'ap' instead of 'p' to puts the output.
You can also include it in your ~/.irbrc to have this as the default method for displaying objects:
require "awesome_print"
AwesomePrint.irb!
Solution 4
Try .inspect
>> a = ["value1", "value2", "value3"]
=> ["value1", "value2", "value3"]
>> a.inspect
=> "[\"value1\", \"value2\", \"value3\"]"
>> a = {"key1" => "value1"}
=> {"key1"=>"value1"}
>> a.inspect
=> "{\"key1\"=>\"value1\"}"
You can also use the p() method to print them:
>> p a
{"key1"=>"value1"}
Solution 5
My personal tool of choice for this is 'Pretty Print' and the pp
method
require 'pp' # <- 'Pretty Print' Included in ruby standard library
pp({ :hello => :world, :this => ['is', 'an', 'array'] })
=> {:hello=>:world, :this=>["is", "an", "array"]}
Comments
-
neezer almost 2 years
When I make a new array/hash in irb, it prints out a nice format to show the structure, ex.
["value1", "value2", "value3"] {"key1" => "value1"}
... but when I try to print out my variables using
puts
, I get them collapsed:value1 value2 value3 key1 value1
I gather that
puts
is not the right command for what I want, but what is? I want to be able to view my variables in irb in the first format, not the second. -
Nedunchezhian A almost 15 yearsNice one, didn't know it (I just love YAML)
-
taw over 13 years
pp
buys you indentation if object is too big. -
aenw over 10 yearsFor 1.9 and later, instead of the
y
method , you should useYAML.dump
. Per [github.com/tenderlove/psych/issues/50]:y
polluted Kernel, and per [ruby-forum.com/topic/2332227],Kernel.y
is private. -
Adam Marshall over 10 yearsI like this one, nice looking Hashes!