Editor integration

Editor integration

### Quick Menu:

• Invoking an editor through the shell
• Setting the default editor
• Using the edit command
• Editing a method with the edit-method command
• Integrating Pry into Emacs

Back to Main Menu

Overview

Although Pry has reasonable support for editing and modifying code, its functionality in this regard cannot compare to a bona fide editor. As a result Pry has fairly good editor integration to give you the best of both worlds. Warning: Pry cannot translate a bash alias into a command because of the way Ruby works so if you use an alias such as 'vi=vim' set your EDITOR env to vim and not vi.

### Invoking an editor through the shell

This is the simplest way to start an editor from Pry. As stated in the shell integration section any input prefixed by a . is sent to the shell; so one way to open an editor in Pry is just to enter the name of the editor prefixed by a .

Example:

pry(main)> .vim test_file.rb

Example: Interpolate file name

pry(main)> _file_
=> "/Users/john/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p180/gems/grit-2.4.1/lib/grit/blob.rb"
pry(main)> .emacsclient #{_file_}

Back to top

### Setting the default editor

As an alternative to invoking an editor through the shell you can also set a default editor for Pry.

The Pry.config.editor variable defaults to the environment variable $EDITOR (or nano if $EDITOR is not defined). If you set it to a String then that string is used as the shell command to invoke the editor. If you set it to a callable (e.g a Proc) then file and line are passed in as parameters and the return value of that callable invocation is used as the exact shell command to invoke the editor.

The value of Pry.config.editor is then used by commands such as edit and edit-method.

Note that it maybe be convenient to set your desired editor in the .pryrc file or else in the $EDITOR environment variable.

Example: Setting a String

Pry.config.editor = "emacsclient"

Example: Setting a proc

Pry.config.editor = proc { |file, line| "emacsclient +#{line} #{file}" }

Back to top

### Using the `edit` command

The edit command is used to invoke your default editor. This command has some advantages over using shell integration as it can immediately "eval" or "require" your file once you have finished editing it. Pry also has some short-cuts for opening files you might need.

The edit command, as well as changing Pry's recent input, can be used to open any file. You can:

• Use edit <filename> or edit <filename>:<line-number>, to specify which file to open.

• Use edit --in 1..2 to specify a range of the Pry input buffer to edit.

• Use the -t switch to open a temporary empty file in an editor.

• Use the --ex switch to open the relevant file at the line that generated the last exception.

  HINT: Use --ex N if you want the Nth line of the backtrace, just like cat --ex.

• Use the -h switch to display help.

• Use the -l switch to jump to the specified line number.

• Use the -n switch to stop the automatic reloading of .rb files after you have edited them.

• Use the -r switch to force Pry to reload and eval a file, even if it does not end in .rb.

• Use the -c switch to open the 'current' file/line (as shown by whereami command) in an editor.

For additional information on the edit --ex functionality, see the Exception handling section.

Example: Jump to line 10 in the file, Pry will reload the file after you have finished

pry(main) edit hello.rb:10

Example: edit --ex causes the file blah.rb to be opened at line 7

pry(main)> hello
NameError: undefined local variable or method `error' for main:Object
from /Users/john/blah.rb:7:in `hello'
pry(main)> edit --ex

Example: edit -n stops Pry from reloading the file.

pry(main)> edit -n ../other-project/other_project.rb

HINT: if you're peeking into files belonging to other projects, you should consider using the cat command instead.

Back to top

### Editing a method

You can use edit-method Class#method or edit-method my_method (if the method is in scope) to open a method for editing directly in the default editor. Pry will attempt to jump to the line in the file where the method is defined.

edit-method accepts the following options:

• Use the -p switch to monkey-patch the method. Instead of opening the file in which the method is defined, this will open a temporary file containing only the method itself.
• Use the -M switch to edit methods defined on instances of a class.
• Use the -m switch to edit methods defined on the object itself.
• Use the -s option to select the super method. You can repeat -ss to get to the super method's super method.
• Use the -n switch to prevent reloading (using load) of the file's contents after editing.
• Use --no-jump to not fast forward editor to first line of method.

Note that, as in the case of show-method, you can simply type edit-method (with no arguments) to edit the 'current method' (when Pry is invoked inside a method using binding.pry at runtime).

Example: use -p to fix a pig's vocal organ:

# pig.rb

class Pig      
  def say_hello    
    :woof
  end

  def eat
    "Om nom nom"
  end 
end

piggy = Pig.new

binding.pry

> ruby -rpry pig.rb
pry(main)> piggy.say_hello
=> :woof
pry(main)> edit-method -p Pig#say_hello

Edit the say_hello method in your text editor:

pry(main)> new_piggy = Pig.new
pry(main)> new_piggy.say_hello
=> :oink

Example:

pry(main)> edit-method -n Grit::Git#apply_patch

Example: use -M to edit methods defined on instances of a class:

pry(main)> cd Time
pry(main)> edit-method -M to_date

Example: use -m to edit methods defined on any object:

pry(main)> cd Time.new
pry(main)> edit-method -m to_date

NOTE: If you're using Ruby 1.9, you can use edit-method on methods defined from the Pry console. As these methods have no associated file, this implies the -p switch. This functionality doesn't yet work for Ruby 1.8.

Back to top