Best way to pretty print a hash

If you have JSON, I recommend JSON.pretty_generate(hash) because it is simpler than awesome_print, looks great in a pre tag, and allows for easy copying from a web page. (See also: How can I "pretty" format my JSON output in Ruby on Rails?)

Another solution which works better for me than pp or awesome_print:

require 'pry' # must install the gem... but you ALWAYS want pry installed anyways
Pry::ColorPrinter.pp(obj)

require 'pp'
pp my_hash

Use pp if you need a built-in solution and just want reasonable line breaks.

Use awesome_print if you can install a gem. (Depending on your users, you may wish to use the index:false option to turn off displaying array indices.)

If you don't have any fancy gem action, but do have JSON, this CLI line will work on a hash:

puts JSON.pretty_generate(my_hash).gsub(":", " =>")

#=>
{
  :key1 => "value1",

  :key2 => "value2",

  :key3 => "value3"
}