shapeshed

Ruby & JavaScript Hacker

Easing Rails Development With Hirb

Rails Console

When developing in Rails I spend a lot of time in the console. If you are a Rails developer you know you can fire it up in rails 2.3.x with

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script/console

Once in the console you can do lots of things like run ActiveRecord queries

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>> User.find_by_last_name('Ornbo')
=> #<User id: 17283, login: "gornbo", email: "george@shapeshed.com", crypted_password: "05b80fd4308e8590d2892aeb774bb3a993053e26357a1a8938b...", password_salt: "rDRzbrh-YmgpTTTDGhQC", persistence_token: "109b4284438cd9c0238ebf1ffc6aea8091c8ad756c345677c2d...", single_access_token: "hqP7auU76mHQkpLxhqVI", perishable_token: "pwUKq8id1PhgCOhPkxIU", login_count: 4, failed_login_count: 0, last_request_at: "2010-03-09 18:09:35", current_login_at: "2010-03-08 11:17:13", last_login_at: "2010-03-08 10:52:05", current_login_ip: "127.0.0.1", last_login_ip: "127.0.0.1", deleted: nil, created_at: "2010-03-04 12:37:38", updated_at: "2010-03-09 18:09:35", first_name: "George", last_name: "Ornbo", photo_file_name: "avatar.jpg", photo_content_type: "image/jpeg", photo_file_size: 4268, photo_updated_at: "2010-03-04 18:15:30">

Ick. That’s not hugely readable.

Hirb to the rescue

Hirb is a gem that makes the console more user friendly. In hirb’s words is is

A mini view framework for console/irb that’s easy to use, even while under its influence. Console goodies include a no-wrap table, auto-pager, tree and menu.

Returning to our previous version hirb makes the output useful

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>> User.find_by_last_name('Ornbo')
  User Load (40.2ms)   SELECT * FROM `users` WHERE (`users`.`last_name` = 'Ornbo') LIMIT 1
+-------+------------+-----------+
| id    | first_name | last_name |
+-------+------------+-----------+
| 17283 | George     | Ornbo     |
+-------+------------+-----------+
1 row in set

Nice. We’ve got the query and a concise, readable view.

So how do we get it to work? Documentation is available round the web but takes a little piecing together so here it is in one place.

Installing Hirb

This is easy enough. Just run

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sudo gem install hirb

To use hirb in Rails when you are using the console add a few lines to .ircbc.

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vi ~/.irbrc

Then the following to the file

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if ENV['RAILS_ENV']
  require 'rubygems'
  require 'hirb'
  require 'active_record'
  Hirb.enable
  ActiveRecord::Base.logger = Logger.new(STDOUT)
end

Save and quit.

Now go into the console and run a query. You’ll see that the output should be changed to use hirb. If your records have lots of columns you’ll likely see

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** Error: Too many fields for the current width. Configure your width and/or fields to avoid this error. Defaulting to a vertical table. **

So you’ll need to customise it..

Customising Hirb

You can set which columns are shown in the console and other options in a hirb.yml file. In the /config folder of your rails app create a file called hirb.yml. A feature that I really like is that you can specify which columns show for models. So for this example I can specify what shows for the User model using

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:output:
  User:
    :options:
      :fields:
        - id
        - first_name
        - last_name

Now when I run the query only those fields will show in the console as we saw earlier.

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>> User.find_by_last_name('Ornbo')
  User Load (40.2ms)   SELECT * FROM `users` WHERE (`users`.`last_name` = 'Ornbo') LIMIT 1
+-------+------------+-----------+
| id    | first_name | last_name |
+-------+------------+-----------+
| 17283 | George     | Ornbo     |
+-------+------------+-----------+
1 row in set

In the project I’m working on I’ve created a configuration for each model so I only see what I need to see when working in the console.

There are lots more options available - refer to the Rdocs for more good stuff. I’ve found hirb really useful so encourage you to give it a go.

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