Formatting Ruby's prettyprint

#!/usr/bin/ruby1.8

require 'pp'
mooth = [
  "booth", "month", "mooch", "morth",
  "mouth", "mowth", "sooth", "tooth"
]
PP.pp(mooth, $>, 40)
# => ["booth",
# =>  "month",
# =>  "mooch",
# =>  "morth",
# =>  "mouth",
# =>  "mowth",
# =>  "sooth",
# =>  "tooth"]
PP.pp(mooth, $>, 79)
# => ["booth", "month", "mooch", "morth", "mouth", "mowth", "sooth", "tooth"]

To change the default with a monkey patch:

#!/usr/bin/ruby1.8

require 'pp'

class PP
  class << self
    alias_method :old_pp, :pp
    def pp(obj, out = $>, width = 40)
      old_pp(obj, out, width)
    end
  end
end

mooth = ["booth", "month", "mooch", "morth", "mouth", "mowth", "sooth", "tooth"]
pp(mooth)
# => ["booth",
# =>  "month",
# =>  "mooch",
# =>  "morth",
# =>  "mouth",
# =>  "mowth",
# =>  "sooth",
# =>  "tooth"]

These methods also work in MRI 1.9.3

Found "ap" aka "Awesome_Print" useful as well from git-repo

Code used to test pp and ap:

require 'pp'
require "awesome_print" #requires gem install awesome_print 

data = [false, 42, %w{fourty two}, {:now => Time.now, :class => Time.now.class, :distance => 42e42}]
puts "Data displayed using pp command"
pp data

puts "Data displayed using ap command"
ap data

O/P from pp vs ap:

Data displayed using pp command
[false,
 42,
 ["fourty", "two"],
 {:now=>2015-09-29 22:39:13 +0800, :class=>Time, :distance=>4.2e+43}]

Data displayed using ap command
[
    [0] false,
    [1] 42,
    [2] [
        [0] "fourty",
        [1] "two"
    ],
    [3] {
             :now => 2015-09-29 22:39:13 +0800,
           :class => Time < Object,
        :distance => 4.2e+43
    }
]

Reference:

• Stackoverflow posting
• Web citing