5 Pry Features Every Ruby Developer Should Know

Pry is a great tool for Ruby. You have probably used it by setting binding.pryin the middle of your code like so:

From: lib/dry/types/hash/schema.rb @ line 58 Dry::Types::Hash::Schema#try:

    40: def try(hash, &block)
    41:   success = true
    42:   output  = {}
    43:
    44:   begin
    45:     result = try_coerce(hash) do |key, member_result|
    46:       success &&= member_result.success?
    47:       output[key] = member_result.input
    48:
    49:       member_result
    50:     end
    51:   rescue ConstraintError, UnknownKeysError, SchemaError => e
    52:     success = false
    53:     result = e
    54:   end
    55:
    56:   binding.pry
    57:
 => 58:   if success
    59:     success(output)
    60:   else
    61:     failure = failure(output, result)
    62:     block ? yield(failure) : failure
    63:   end
    64: end

> (#<Dry::Types::Hash::Weak>)

Pry is much more than a tool for setting a breakpoint though. It is a great tool for exploring code interactively.

Discovering available methods

Pry provides a command called ls that lists methods and variables available in the current scope. In the code snippet above, the ls command would print out the following:

> (#<Dry::Types::Hash::Weak>) ls
#<Dry::Equalizer:0x007fafd29f2b88>#methods:
  hash
  inspect

Dry::Equalizer::Methods#methods:
  ==
  eql?

Dry::Types::Options#methods:
  meta
  pristine
  with

Dry::Types::Builder#methods:
  constrained
  constrained_type
  constructor
  default
  enum
  optional
  safe
  |

Dry::Types::Definition#methods:
  ===
  default?
  name
  options
  primitive?
  success
  constrained?
  failure
  optional?
  primitive
  result
  valid?

Dry::Types::Hash#methods:
  permissive
  schema
  strict
  strict_with_defaults
  symbolized
  weak

Dry::Types::Hash::Schema#methods:
  []
  call
  member_types

Dry::Types::Hash::Weak#methods:
  try

instance variables:
  @__args__
  @member_types
  @meta
  @options
  @primitive

locals:
  block
  e
  failure
  hash
  output
  result
  success

This is a breakdown of all the methods available in the current scope, grouped by the class or module that owns that method. It also lists the available instance variables and local variables. This is a very powerful tool for quickly understanding the role and responsibility of the code you are debugging.

The ls command also lets you drill down into different parts of the current scope. We can use ls --locals to view the names of local variables alongside their current values:

> (#<Dry::Types::Hash::Weak>) ls -l
result = {
  :name=> #<Dry::Types::Result::Failure
    input=nil
    error=#<Dry::Logic::Result:0x007fafd2cb98d0
      @success=false,
      @id=nil,
      @serializer=#<Proc:[email protected]/dry/logic/rule.rb:47>>>}
hash = {:name=>nil}
output = {:name=>nil}
success = false
block = nil
e = nil
failure = nil

Learning without documentation

Pry makes it easy to search for methods under a namespace. For example, if we wanted to find methods for handling xpaths with Nokogiri, we can use find-method:

> find-method xpath Nokogiri

Nokogiri::CSS.xpath_for
Nokogiri::CSS::Node
Nokogiri::CSS::Node#to_xpath
Nokogiri::CSS::Parser
Nokogiri::CSS::Parser#xpath_for
Nokogiri::XML::Document
Nokogiri::XML::Document#implied_xpath_contexts
Nokogiri::XML::Node
Nokogiri::XML::Node#implied_xpath_contexts
Nokogiri::XML::NodeSet
Nokogiri::XML::NodeSet#xpath
Nokogiri::XML::NodeSet#implied_xpath_contexts
Nokogiri::XML::Searchable
Nokogiri::XML::Searchable#xpath
Nokogiri::XML::Searchable#at_xpath
Nokogiri::XML::Searchable#xpath_query_from_css_rule

We learn some interesting features from this list:

1. We can convert CSS selectors into XPaths
2. We can search XML documents with #xpath and #xpath_at

If we want to learn more about how to precisely use one of these methods we can use the stat command:

> stat Nokogiri::CSS.xpath_for
Method Information:
--
Name: xpath_for
Alias: None.
Owner: #<Class:Nokogiri::CSS>
Visibility: public
Type: Bound
Arity: -2
Method Signature: xpath_for(selector, options=?)
Source Location: /dev/gems/ruby/2.4.1/gems/nokogiri-1.7.2/lib/nokogiri/css.rb:22

If we wanted to learn how the method works, we can use show-source:

> show-source Nokogiri::CSS.xpath_for

From: /dev/gems/ruby/2.4.1/gems/nokogiri-1.7.2/lib/nokogiri/css.rb @ line 22:
Owner: #<Class:Nokogiri::CSS>
Visibility: public
Number of lines: 3

def xpath_for(selector, options={})
  Parser.new(options[:ns] || {}).xpath_for selector, options
end

We can also see nice, syntax highlighted code examples using show-doc:

These handful of commands are a great daily resource for debugging and exploring new gems. Give it a try!