Awesome Print

Awesome Print is Ruby library that pretty prints Ruby objects in full color exposing their internal structure with proper indentation. Rails ActiveRecord objects and usage within Rails templates are supported via included mixins.

Installation

# Installing as Ruby gem
$ gem install awesome_print

# Installing as Rails plugin
$ ruby script/plugin install http://github.com/michaeldv/awesome_print.git

# Cloning the repository
$ git clone git://github.com/michaeldv/awesome_print.git

Usage

require "awesome_print"
ap object, options = {}

Default options:

:indent     => 4,      # Indent using 4 spaces.
:index      => true,   # Display array indices.
:html       => false,  # Use ANSI color codes rather than HTML.
:multiline  => true,   # Display in multiple lines.
:plain      => false,  # Use colors.
:sort_keys  => false,  # Do not sort hash keys.
:limited    => false,  # Limit large output.
:limit_size => 7,      # Total number of data lines in limited output.
:color => {
  :array      => :white,
  :bignum     => :blue,
  :class      => :yellow,
  :date       => :greenish,
  :falseclass => :red,
  :fixnum     => :blue,
  :float      => :blue,
  :hash       => :gray,
  :nilclass   => :red,
  :string     => :yellowish,
  :symbol     => :cyanish,
  :time       => :greenish,
  :trueclass  => :green
}

Supported color names:

:gray, :red, :green, :yellow, :blue, :purple, :cyan, :white
:black, :redish, :greenish, :yellowish, :blueish, :purpleish, :cyanish, :pale

Examples

$ cat > 1.rb
require "awesome_print"
data = [ false, 42, %w(forty two), { :now => Time.now, :class => Time.now.class, :distance => 42e42 } ]
ap data
^D
$ ruby 1.rb
[
    [0] false,
    [1] 42,
    [2] [
        [0] "forty",
        [1] "two"
    ],
    [3] {
           :class => Time < Object,
             :now => Fri Apr 02 19:55:53 -0700 2010,
        :distance => 4.2e+43
    }
]

$ cat > 2.rb
require "awesome_print"
data = { :now => Time.now, :class => Time.now.class, :distance => 42e42 }
ap data, :indent => -2  # <-- Left align hash keys.
^D
$ ruby 2.rb
{
  :class    => Time < Object,
  :now      => Fri Apr 02 19:55:53 -0700 2010,
  :distance => 4.2e+43
}

$ cat > 3.rb
require "awesome_print"
data = [ false, 42, %w(forty two) ]
data << data  # <-- Nested array.
ap data, :multiline => false
^D
$ ruby 3.rb
[ false, 42, [ "forty", "two" ], [...] ]

$ cat > 4.rb
require "awesome_print"
class Hello
  def self.world(x, y, z = nil, &blk)
  end
end
ap Hello.methods - Class.methods
^D
$ ruby 4.rb
[
    [0] world(x, y, *z, &blk) Hello
]

$ cat > 5.rb
require "awesome_print"
ap (''.methods - Object.methods).grep(/!/)
^D
$ ruby 5.rb
[
    [ 0] capitalize!()           String
    [ 1]      chomp!(*arg1)      String
    [ 2]       chop!()           String
    [ 3]     delete!(*arg1)      String
    [ 4]   downcase!()           String
    [ 5]     encode!(*arg1)      String
    [ 6]       gsub!(*arg1)      String
    [ 7]     lstrip!()           String
    [ 8]       next!()           String
    [ 9]    reverse!()           String
    [10]     rstrip!()           String
    [11]      slice!(*arg1)      String
    [12]    squeeze!(*arg1)      String
    [13]      strip!()           String
    [14]        sub!(*arg1)      String
    [15]       succ!()           String
    [16]   swapcase!()           String
    [17]         tr!(arg1, arg2) String
    [18]       tr_s!(arg1, arg2) String
    [19]     upcase!()           String
]

$ cat > 6.rb
require "awesome_print"
ap 42 == ap(42)
^D
$ ruby 6.rb
42
true
$ cat 7.rb
require "awesome_print"
some_array = (1..1000).to_a
ap some_array, :limited => true
^D
$ ruby 7.rb
[
    [  0] 1,
    [  1] 2,
    [  2] 3,
    [  3] .. [996],
    [997] 998,
    [998] 999,
    [999] 1000
]

$ cat 8.rb
require "awesome_print"
some_array = (1..1000).to_a
ap some_array, :limit_size => 5
^D
$ ruby 8.rb
[
    [  0] 1,
    [  1] 2,
    [  2] .. [997],
    [998] 999,
    [999] 1000
]

Example (Rails console)

$ 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 => "(111)549-5002",
                    :fax => "(349)415-2266",
             :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 => "info@hayesdubuque.com",
        :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 => "(042)056-1534",
                    :fax => "(106)017-8792",
             :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 => "info@ziemannstreich.com",
        :background_info => nil
    }
]
rails> ap Account
class Account < ActiveRecord::Base {
                 :id => :integer,
            :user_id => :integer,
        :assigned_to => :integer,
               :name => :string,
             :access => :string,
            :website => :string,
    :toll_free_phone => :string,
              :phone => :string,
                :fax => :string,
         :deleted_at => :datetime,
         :created_at => :datetime,
         :updated_at => :datetime,
              :email => :string,
    :background_info => :string
}
rails>

IRB integration

To use awesome_print as default formatter in irb and Rails console add the following lines into your ~/.irbrc file:

require "rubygems"
require "awesome_print"

unless IRB.version.include?('DietRB')
  IRB::Irb.class_eval do
    def output_value
      ap @context.last_value
    end
  end
else # MacRuby
  IRB.formatter = Class.new(IRB::Formatter) do
    def inspect_object(object)
      object.ai
    end
  end.new
end

Logger Convenience Method

awesome_print adds the 'ap' method to the Logger and ActiveSupport::BufferedLogger classes letting you call:

logger.ap object

By default, this logs at the :debug level. You can override that globally with:

:log_level => :info

in the custom defaults (see below). You can also override on a per call basis with:

logger.ap object, :warn

ActionView Convenience Method

awesome_print adds the 'ap' method to the ActionView::Base class making it available within Rails templates. For example:

<%= ap @accounts.first %>

With other web frameworks (ex: in Sinatra templates) you can explicitly request HTML formatting:

<%= ap @accounts.first, :html => true %>

Setting Custom Defaults

You can set your own default options by creating .aprc file in your home directory. Within that file assign your defaults to AwesomePrint.defaults. For example:

# ~/.aprc file.
AwesomePrint.defaults = {
  :indent => -2,
  :color => {
    :hash  => :pale,
    :class => :white
  }
}

Running Specs

$ gem install rspec           # RSpec 2.x is the requirement.
$ rake spec                   # Run the entire spec suite.
$ rspec spec/logger_spec.rb   # Run individual spec file.

Note on Patches/Pull Requests

• Fork the project on Github.
• Make your feature addition or bug fix.
• Add specs for it, making sure $ rake spec is all green.
• Commit, do not mess with rakefile, version, or history.
• Send me a pull request.

Contributors

• Andrew O'Brien -- https://github.com/AndrewO
• Daniel Bretoi -- http://github.com/danielb2
• Eloy Duran -- http://github.com/alloy
• Elpizo Choi -- https://github.com/fuJiin
• Benoit Daloze -- http://github.com/eregon
• Sean Gallagher -- http://github.com/torandu
• Stephan Hagemann -- https://github.com/shageman
• Tim Harper -- http://github.com/timcharper
• Tobias Crawley -- http://github.com/tobias
• Viktar Basharymau -- https://github.com/DNNX

License

Copyright (c) 2010-2011 Michael Dvorkin

twitter.com/mid

%w(mike dvorkin.net) * "@" || %w(mike fatfreecrm.com) * "@"

Released under the MIT license. See LICENSE file for details.