Look up all descendants of a class in Ruby

Here is an example:

class Parent
  def self.descendants
    ObjectSpace.each_object(Class).select { |klass| klass < self }
  end
end

class Child < Parent
end

class GrandChild < Child
end

puts Parent.descendants
puts Child.descendants

puts Parent.descendants gives you:

GrandChild
Child

puts Child.descendants gives you:

GrandChild

If you use Rails >= 3, you have two options in place. Use .descendants if you want more than one level depth of children classes, or use .subclasses for the first level of child classes.

Example:

class Animal
end

class Mammal < Animal
end

class Dog < Mammal
end

class Fish < Animal
end

Animal.subclasses #=> [Mammal, Fish] 
Animal.descendants  #=> [Dog, Mammal, Fish]