How can I capture STDOUT to a string?
You can do this by making a call to your R script inside backticks, like this:
result = `./run-your-script`
puts result # will contain STDOUT from run-your-script
For more information on running subprocesses in Ruby, check out this Stack Overflow question.
A handy function for capturing stdout into a string...
The following method is a handy general purpose tool to capture stdout and return it as a string. (I use this frequently in unit tests where I want to verify something printed to stdout.) Note especially the use of the ensure
clause to restore $stdout (and avoid astonishment):
def with_captured_stdout
original_stdout = $stdout # capture previous value of $stdout
$stdout = StringIO.new # assign a string buffer to $stdout
yield # perform the body of the user code
$stdout.string # return the contents of the string buffer
ensure
$stdout = original_stdout # restore $stdout to its previous value
end
So, for example:
>> str = with_captured_stdout { puts "hi"; puts "bye"}
=> "hi\nbye\n"
>> print str
hi
bye
=> nil
If activesupport is available in your project you may do the following:
output = capture(:stdout) do
run_arbitrary_code
end
More info about Kernel.capture
can be found here
Redirect Standard Output to a StringIO Object
You can certainly redirect standard output to a variable. For example:
# Set up standard output as a StringIO object.
foo = StringIO.new
$stdout = foo
# Send some text to $stdout.
puts 'hi'
puts 'bye'
# Access the data written to standard output.
$stdout.string
# => "hi\nbye\n"
# Send your captured output to the original output stream.
STDOUT.puts $stdout.string
In practice, this is probably not a great idea, but at least now you know it's possible.