DirtyInformation

Pair program with me!

Just the Tip

When I’m working in a new code base, learning something new, or just wanting to play irb is my tool of choice. Like Ernie Miller I find it useful when exploring my own code too. Pairing with others I’ve picked up a few tricks about irb. Many “ticks” I find are unknown to a large contingent. It amazes me to find developers who have been exploring Ruby for years, but when it come to irb they’ve only touched the tip of the iceberg. Let’s look under the water.

I type an exploratory statement into irb only to find out that I need to explore the output. Instead of reentering the entire statement there is a much better way.

  irb> Ocelot.where(cost:500, name: /hex/).limit(100).order(:age, :asc).skip(20)
  # tons of output that I want to play with
  irb> ocelots = _

Before I was shown the _ my exploration was ridden with time consuming arrows. The _ is a one character time saver that makes me smile every time I get to share it with someone new.

The second trick I learned was a happy little accident. I thought I was in the terminal and I used CTRL-R to search back through previous commands. If you have never used CTRL-R in the terminal this is a double whammy. In either the console or irb pressing CTRL-R will then allow you to search your command history. If you didn’t find the droid you were looking for repeatedly hit CTRL-R to cycle backwards through all the matches.

This last one I know will make my pact partner smile. I always forget about this trick, but it can be a big time saver when working with the same object over and over. Normally when you are in irb self is set to main. main is an instance of Object acting as your context. Every command you enter in irb is evaluated inside of main. So let’s switch that up to make out life a little simpler.

  irb(main):001:0> self
  => main
  irb(main):002:0> foo = "this agile life"
  => "this agile life"
  irb(main):003:0> irb foo
  irb#1(this agile life):001:0> upcase
  => "THIS AGILE LIFE"
  irb#1(this agile life):002:0> downcase
  => "this agile life"
  irb#1(this agile life):003:0> == "this agile life"
  SyntaxError: (irb#1):3: syntax error, unexpected ==
  == "this agile life"
    ^

  irb#1(this agile life):004:0>
  => #<IRB::Irb: @context=#<IRB::Context:0x007fefcb2aafe0>,
  @signal_status=:IN_EVAL, @scanner=#<RubyLex:0x007fefcb2a34c0>>
  irb(main):004:0>

Most methods will now be called in the context of your object. Note that ==, +, and others will not work. They don’t even work if you add parenthesis. I guess we can’t have it all. To get back up to the main object type exit or (bonus) hit CTRL-D. Note: You can use self == 1

I wish I could remember who showed me all of these, but alas the credit goes to the proverbial “they.” I hope these little tricks help speed up your exploration. I almost forgot the next time your boss comes by while you’re “playing” in the console hit CTRL-L before getting caught.

The Past

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