Does Ruby have a 'which' like method

[Scott G Smith]

Most UNIX shells have a which command.

It tells me the file which corresponds to a shell command.

Demo:
which date
/bin/date

In ruby,
Suppose I'm dealing with a String.

This String has had some methods mixed-in.

For example,

s = 'hello'
p(s.length)

Is there a way I can find the module or string.rb which defined the
length() method?

I'd like it to work like this:

p(s.which('length'))
/my/rubyfiles/string_module.rb

Thanks,
Scott

 

[Rajinder Yadav]

Most UNIX shells have a which command.

It tells me the file which corresponds to a shell command.

Demo:
which date
/bin/date

In ruby,
Suppose I'm dealing with a String.

This String has had some methods mixed-in.

For example,

s = 'hello'
p(s.length)

Is there a way I can find the module or string.rb which defined the
length() method?

I'd like it to work like this:

p(s.which('length'))
/my/rubyfiles/string_module.rb

you should be able to do the same thing using: http://www.railsapi.com

make sure to select 'Rails v2.3.4 or Rails v2.3.4 + Ruby v1.9' before clicking
on the 'Browse Online' otherwise you will get Rails APIs by default

Thanks,
Scott

--
Kind Regards,
Rajinder Yadav

http://DevMentor.org
Do Good ~ Share Freely

 

[Scott G Smith]

Rajinder,
your pointer to sdoc is a good one.
Thanks!

It turns out the answer to my question was actually answered by me
when I was taking out the trash.

The answer is: Just use the debugger.
When I "step into" a method,
the debugger gives me the file name of that method.

I demonstrate with a screendump:

Tue Oct 06 23:50 /software maco$
Tue Oct 06 23:50 /software maco$ rails cars4sale
create
create app/controllers
create app/helpers
create app/models
create app/views/layouts
create config/environments
create config/initializers
create config/locales
create db
create doc
create lib
create lib/tasks
create log
create public/images
create public/javascripts
create public/stylesheets
create script/performance
create test/fixtures
create test/functional
create test/integration
create test/performance
create test/unit
create vendor
create vendor/plugins
create tmp/sessions
create tmp/sockets
create tmp/cache
create tmp/pids
create Rakefile
create README
create app/controllers/application_controller.rb
create app/helpers/application_helper.rb
create config/database.yml
create config/routes.rb
create config/locales/en.yml
create config/initializers/backtrace_silencers.rb
create config/initializers/inflections.rb
create config/initializers/mime_types.rb
create config/initializers/new_rails_defaults.rb
create config/initializers/session_store.rb
create config/environment.rb
create config/boot.rb
create config/environments/production.rb
create config/environments/development.rb
create config/environments/test.rb
create script/about
create script/console
create script/dbconsole
create script/destroy
create script/generate
create script/runner
create script/server
create script/plugin
create script/performance/benchmarker
create script/performance/profiler
create test/test_helper.rb
create test/performance/browsing_test.rb
create public/404.html
create public/422.html
create public/500.html
create public/index.html
create public/favicon.ico
create public/robots.txt
create public/images/rails.png
create public/javascripts/prototype.js
create public/javascripts/effects.js
create public/javascripts/dragdrop.js
create public/javascripts/controls.js
create public/javascripts/application.js
create doc/README_FOR_APP
create log/server.log
create log/production.log
create log/development.log
create log/test.log
Tue Oct 06 23:50 /software maco$ cd cars4sale
Tue Oct 06 23:50 /software/cars4sale maco$ script/generate scaffold
Car make:string model:string yr:string
exists app/models/
exists app/controllers/
exists app/helpers/
create app/views/cars
exists app/views/layouts/
exists test/functional/
exists test/unit/
create test/unit/helpers/
exists public/stylesheets/
create app/views/cars/index.html.erb
create app/views/cars/show.html.erb
create app/views/cars/new.html.erb
create app/views/cars/edit.html.erb
create app/views/layouts/cars.html.erb
create public/stylesheets/scaffold.css
create app/controllers/cars_controller.rb
create test/functional/cars_controller_test.rb
create app/helpers/cars_helper.rb
create test/unit/helpers/cars_helper_test.rb
route map.resources :cars
dependency model
exists app/models/
exists test/unit/
exists test/fixtures/
create app/models/car.rb
create test/unit/car_test.rb
create test/fixtures/cars.yml
create db/migrate
create db/migrate/20091007065137_create_cars.rb
Tue Oct 06 23:51 /software/cars4sale maco$ rake db:migrate
(in /software/cars4sale)
== CreateCars: migrating
=====================================================
-- create_tablecars)
-> 0.0018s
== CreateCars: migrated (0.0020s)
============================================

Tue Oct 06 23:51 /software/cars4sale maco$
Tue Oct 06 23:54 /software/cars4sale maco$ cat debug_this.rb

car1 = Car.newmake => "Chevy", :model => "Camaro", :yr => "1970")
car1.save
debugger
cars = Car.find :all
Tue Oct 06 23:54 /software/cars4sale maco$
Tue Oct 06 23:54 /software/cars4sale maco$
Tue Oct 06 23:54 /software/cars4sale maco$ rdebug script/runner
debug_this.rb
/software/cars4sale/script/runner:2
require File.dirname(__FILE__) + '/../config/boot'
(rdb:1) c
debug_this.rb:5
cars = Car.find :all
(rdb:1) s
/pt/r1/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-2.3.2/lib/active_record/
base.rb:608
options = args.extract_options!
(rdb:1) l
[603, 612] in /pt/r1/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-2.3.2/lib/
active_record/base.rb
603 # person = Person.find(1, :lock => true)
604 # person.visits += 1
605 # person.save!
606 # end
607 def find(*args)
=> 608 options = args.extract_options!
609 validate_find_options(options)
610 set_readonly_option!(options)
611
612 case args.first
(rdb:1) quit

Really quit? (y/n) y

Tue Oct 06 23:55 /software/cars4sale maco$
Tue Oct 06 23:55 /software/cars4sale maco$

So for the Car class, its .find() method is in this file at line 608:

/pt/r1/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-2.3.2/lib/active_record/
base.rb

 

[Robert Klemme]

It turns out the answer to my question was actually answered by me
when I was taking out the trash.

The answer is: Just use the debugger.
When I "step into" a method,
the debugger gives me the file name of that method.

An alternative is to use set_trace_func: IIRC that also provides file
name and line number so you can identify the source.

Kind regards

robert

 

[Roger Pack]

Is there a way I can find the module or string.rb which defined the
length() method?

In 1.9 (and REE?) it's
That won't help if it's from a .c file, but will if it's from a .rb
file.

-r