hsume2-hirb

To read a linked version of this README, {click here}[http://tagaholic.me/hirb/doc/].

== Description

Hirb provides a mini view framework for console applications and uses it to improve ripl(irb)'s default inspect output. Given an object or array of objects, hirb renders a view based on the object's class and/or ancestry. Hirb offers reusable views in the form of helper classes. The two main helpers, Hirb::Helpers::Table and Hirb::Helpers::Tree, provide several options for generating ascii tables and trees. Using Hirb::Helpers::AutoTable, hirb has useful default views for at least ten popular database gems i.e. Rails' ActiveRecord::Base. Other than views, hirb offers a smart pager and a console menu. The smart pager only pages when the output exceeds the current screen size. The menu is used in conjunction with tables to offer {two dimensional menus}[http://tagaholic.me/2010/02/16/two-dimensional-console-menus-with-hirb.html].

== Install

Install the gem with:

gem install hirb

For people using full-width unicode characters, install {hirb-unicode}[https://github.com/miaout17/hirb-unicode]:

gem install hirb-unicode

== View Tutorials

• To create and configure views, see Hirb::View or {here if on the web}[http://tagaholic.me/hirb/doc/classes/Hirb/View.html].
• To create dynamic views, see Hirb::DynamicView or {here if on the web}[http://tagaholic.me/hirb/doc/classes/Hirb/DynamicView.html].

== Printing Ascii Tables

To print ascii tables from an array of arrays, hashes or any objects:

puts Hirb::Helpers::AutoTable.render(ARRAY_OF_OBJECTS)

Hirb will intelligently pick up on field names from an array of hashes and create properly-aligned fields from an array of arrays. See {here}[http://tagaholic.me/2009/10/15/boson-and-hirb-interactions.html#hirbs_handy_tables] for examples.

== Rails Example

Let's load and enable the view framework: $ rails console Loading local environment (Rails 3.0.3)

require 'hirb' => true Hirb.enable => nil

The default configuration provides table views for ActiveRecord::Base descendants. If a class isn't configured, Hirb reverts to irb's default echo mode.

Hirb::Formatter.dynamic_config['ActiveRecord::Base'] => {:class=>Hirb::Helpers::AutoTable, :ancestor=>true}

Tag is a model class and descendant of ActiveRecord::Base

Tag.last +-----+-------------------------+-------------+---------------+-----------+-----------+-------+ | id | created_at | description | name | namespace | predicate | value | +-----+-------------------------+-------------+---------------+-----------+-----------+-------+ | 907 | 2009-03-06 21:10:41 UTC | | gem:tags=yaml | gem | tags | yaml | +-----+-------------------------+-------------+---------------+-----------+-----------+-------+ 1 row in set

Hirb::Formatter.dynamic_config['String'] => nil 'plain ol irb' => 'plain ol irb' Hirb::Formatter.dynamic_config['Symbol'] => nil :blah => :blah

From above you can see there are no views configured for a String or a Symbol so Hirb defaults to irb's echo mode. On the other hand, Tag has a view thanks to being a descendant of ActiveRecord::Base and there being an :ancestor option.

Having seen hirb display views based on an output object's class, let's see it handle an array of objects:

Tag.all :limit=>3, :order=>"id DESC" +-----+-------------------------+-------------+-------------------+-----------+-----------+----------+ | id | created_at | description | name | namespace | predicate | value | +-----+-------------------------+-------------+-------------------+-----------+-----------+----------+ | 907 | 2009-03-06 21:10:41 UTC | | gem:tags=yaml | gem | tags | yaml | | 906 | 2009-03-06 08:47:04 UTC | | gem:tags=nomonkey | gem | tags | nomonkey | | 905 | 2009-03-04 00:30:10 UTC | | article:tags=ruby | article | tags | ruby | +-----+-------------------------+-------------+-------------------+-----------+-----------+----------+ 3 rows in set

At any time you can disable Hirb if you really like irb's lovely echo mode:

Hirb.disable => nil Tag.all :limit=>3, :order=>"id DESC" => [#<Tag id: 907, name: "gem:tags=yaml", description: nil, created_at: "2009-03-06 21:10:41", namespace: "gem", predicate: "tags", value: "yaml">, #<Tag id: 906, name: "gem:tags=nomonkey", description: nil, created_at: "2009-03-06 08:47:04", namespace: "gem", predicate: "tags", value: "nomonkey">, #<Tag id: 905, name: "article:tags=ruby", description: nil, created_at: "2009-03-04 00:30:10", namespace: "article", predicate: "tags", value: "ruby">]

== Views: Anytime, Anywhere While preconfigured tables are great for database records, sometimes you just want to create tables/views for any output object:

#These examples don't need to have Hirb::View enabled.

Hirb.disable => nil

Imports table() and view()

extend Hirb::Console => main

Create a unicode table

table [[:a, :b, :c]], :unicode => true ┌───┬───┬───┐ │ 0 │ 1 │ 2 │ ├───┼───┼───┤ │ a ╎ b ╎ c │ └───┴───┴───┘ 1 row in set

Create a table of Dates comparing them with different formats.

table [Date.today, Date.today.next_month], :fields=>[:to_s, :ld, :ajd, :amjd, :asctime] +------------+--------+-----------+-------+--------------------------+ | to_s | ld | ajd | amjd | asctime | +------------+--------+-----------+-------+--------------------------+ | 2009-03-11 | 155742 | 4909803/2 | 54901 | Wed Mar 11 00:00:00 2009 | | 2009-04-11 | 155773 | 4909865/2 | 54932 | Sat Apr 11 00:00:00 2009 | +------------+--------+-----------+-------+--------------------------+ 2 rows in set

Same table as the previous method. However view() will be able to call any helper.

view [Date.today, Date.today.next_month], :class=>:object_table, :fields=>[:to_s, :ld, :ajd, :amjd, :asctime]

If these console methods weren't convenient enough, try:

Imports view() to all objects.

require 'hirb/import_object' => true

Yields same table as above examples.

[Date.today, Date.today.next_month].view :class=>:object_table, :fields=>[:to_s, :ld, :ajd, :amjd, :asctime]

Although views by default are printed to STDOUT, they can be easily modified to write anywhere:

Setup views to write to file 'console.log'.

Hirb::View.render_method = lambda {|output| File.open("console.log", 'w') {|f| f.write(output) } }

Writes to file with same table output as above example.

view [Date.today, Date.today.next_month], :class=>:object_table, :fields=>[:to_s, :ld, :ajd, :amjd, :asctime]

Doesn't write to file because Symbol doesn't have a view and thus defaults to irb's echo mode.

:blah => :blah

Go back to printing Hirb views to STDOUT.

Hirb::View.reset_render_method

== Pager

Hirb has both pager and formatter functionality enabled by default. If you want to turn off the functionality of either you can pass that in at startup:

Hirb.enable :pager=>false Hirb.enable :formatter=>false

or toggle their state at runtime:

Hirb::View.toggle_pager Hirb::View.toggle_formatter

== Sharing Helpers and Views If you have tested helpers you'd like to share, fork Hirb and put them under lib/hirb/helpers. To share views for certain classes, put them under lib/hirb/views. Please submit views for gems that have a nontrivial number of users.

== Limitations If using Wirble and irb, you should call Hirb after it since they both override irb's default output.

== Motivation Table code from http://gist.github.com/72234 and {my console app's needs}[http://github.com/cldwalker/tag-tree].

== Credits

• Chrononaut for vertical table helper.
• janlelis for unicode table helper.
• crafterm, spastorino, xaviershay, bogdan, asanghi and joshua for patches.

== Bugs/Issues Please report them {on github}[http://github.com/cldwalker/hirb/issues].

== Contributing {See here}[http://tagaholic.me/contributing.html]

== Links

• http://tagaholic.me/2009/03/13/hirb-irb-on-the-good-stuff.html
• http://tagaholic.me/2009/03/18/ruby-class-trees-rails-plugin-trees-with-hirb.html
• http://tagaholic.me/2009/06/19/page-irb-output-and-improve-ri-with-hirb.html