Asp Forum - like man or apropos for Ruby

Phlip

7/20/2007 11:57:00 PM

Rubiods:

After years of studying Ruby, one factoid has eluded me. Actually, more than
one, but I have to start somewhere...

How, on a command line, can I do the equivalent of 'apropos' or 'man'? How
can I search the RDoc knowledge base installed on my own computer, with a
'less' interface, without Googling for everything all the time?

--
Phlip
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/9780...
"Test Driven Ajax (on Rails)"
assert_xpath, assert_javascript, & assert_ajax

11 Answers

Tim Hunter

7/21/2007 12:08:00 AM

Phlip wrote:
> Rubiods:
>
> After years of studying Ruby, one factoid has eluded me. Actually, more than
> one, but I have to start somewhere...
>
> How, on a command line, can I do the equivalent of 'apropos' or 'man'? How
> can I search the RDoc knowledge base installed on my own computer, with a
> 'less' interface, without Googling for everything all the time?
>
>
Assuming you installed the documentation, you can use ri.

ri String#to_i

for example.

--
RMagick OS X Installer [http://rubyforge.org/project...]
RMagick Hints & Tips [http://rubyforge.org/forum/forum.php?for...]
RMagick Installation FAQ [http://rmagick.rubyforge.org/instal...]

John Joyce

7/21/2007 12:10:00 AM

On Jul 20, 2007, at 7:00 PM, Phlip wrote:

> Rubiods:
>
> After years of studying Ruby, one factoid has eluded me. Actually,
> more than
> one, but I have to start somewhere...
>
> How, on a command line, can I do the equivalent of 'apropos' or
> 'man'? How
> can I search the RDoc knowledge base installed on my own computer,
> with a
> 'less' interface, without Googling for everything all the time?
>
> --
> Phlip
> http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/9780...
> "Test Driven Ajax (on Rails)"
> assert_xpath, assert_javascript, & assert_ajax
>
>
>
ri

example:
ri ClassName
ri method_name
ri Class#method
ri Class.method

Rick DeNatale

7/21/2007 3:04:00 AM

On 7/20/07, Tim Hunter <TimHunter@nc.rr.com> wrote:
> Phlip wrote:
> > Rubiods:
> >
> > After years of studying Ruby, one factoid has eluded me. Actually, more than
> > one, but I have to start somewhere...
> >
> > How, on a command line, can I do the equivalent of 'apropos' or 'man'? How
> > can I search the RDoc knowledge base installed on my own computer, with a
> > 'less' interface, without Googling for everything all the time?
> >
> >
> Assuming you installed the documentation, you can use ri.
>
> ri String#to_i
>
> for example.

And for a better performing alternative, get Mauricio Fernandez fastri
http://eigenclass.org/hiki...

It provides a qri command which pretty much directly substitutes for
ri. It's available as a gem.

--
Rick DeNatale

My blog on Ruby
http://talklikeaduck.denh...

M. Edward (Ed) Borasky

7/21/2007 3:09:00 AM

Rick DeNatale wrote:
> On 7/20/07, Tim Hunter <TimHunter@nc.rr.com> wrote:
>> Phlip wrote:
>> > Rubiods:
>> >
>> > After years of studying Ruby, one factoid has eluded me. Actually,
>> more than
>> > one, but I have to start somewhere...
>> >
>> > How, on a command line, can I do the equivalent of 'apropos' or
>> 'man'? How
>> > can I search the RDoc knowledge base installed on my own computer,
>> with a
>> > 'less' interface, without Googling for everything all the time?
>> >
>> >
>> Assuming you installed the documentation, you can use ri.
>>
>> ri String#to_i
>>
>> for example.
>
> And for a better performing alternative, get Mauricio Fernandez fastri
> http://eigenclass.org/hiki...
>
> It provides a qri command which pretty much directly substitutes for
> ri. It's available as a gem.
>
IIRC it is *significantly* faster if you install from a tarball rather
than as a gem, but I don't remember why. Can someone enlighten me?

Alex Young

7/21/2007 10:09:00 AM

M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote:
> Rick DeNatale wrote:
>> On 7/20/07, Tim Hunter <TimHunter@nc.rr.com> wrote:
>>> Phlip wrote:
>>>> Rubiods:
>>>>
>>>> After years of studying Ruby, one factoid has eluded me. Actually,
>>> more than
>>>> one, but I have to start somewhere...
>>>>
>>>> How, on a command line, can I do the equivalent of 'apropos' or
>>> 'man'? How
>>>> can I search the RDoc knowledge base installed on my own computer,
>>> with a
>>>> 'less' interface, without Googling for everything all the time?
>>>>
>>>>
>>> Assuming you installed the documentation, you can use ri.
>>>
>>> ri String#to_i
>>>
>>> for example.
>> And for a better performing alternative, get Mauricio Fernandez fastri
>> http://eigenclass.org/hiki...
>>
>> It provides a qri command which pretty much directly substitutes for
>> ri. It's available as a gem.
>>
> IIRC it is *significantly* faster if you install from a tarball rather
> than as a gem, but I don't remember why. Can someone enlighten me?
>
Presumably (and this is a wild stab in the dark) if it's installed as a
gem, it requires rubygems before doing anything to do with your query.
Loading rubygems is itself a slow operation.

--
Alex

Eugen Minciu

7/21/2007 12:40:00 PM

Excerpts from M. Edward (Ed) Borasky's message of Sat Jul 21 06:09:14 +0300 2007:
> Rick DeNatale wrote:
> > On 7/20/07, Tim Hunter <TimHunter@nc.rr.com> wrote:
> >> Phlip wrote:
> >> > Rubiods:
> >> >
> >> > After years of studying Ruby, one factoid has eluded me. Actually,
> >> more than
> >> > one, but I have to start somewhere...
> >> >
> >> > How, on a command line, can I do the equivalent of 'apropos' or
> >> 'man'? How
> >> > can I search the RDoc knowledge base installed on my own computer,
> >> with a
> >> > 'less' interface, without Googling for everything all the time?
> >> >
> >> >
> >> Assuming you installed the documentation, you can use ri.
> >>
> >> ri String#to_i
> >>
> >> for example.
> >
> > And for a better performing alternative, get Mauricio Fernandez fastri
> > http://eigenclass.org/hiki...
> >
> > It provides a qri command which pretty much directly substitutes for
> > ri. It's available as a gem.
> >
> IIRC it is *significantly* faster if you install from a tarball rather
> than as a gem, but I don't remember why. Can someone enlighten me?
During the build I see:
A small note about RubyGems + FastRI
====================================
RubyGems adds a noticeable overhead to fri, making it run slower than if
you
installed it directly from the tarball with setup.rb.

--
Eugen Minciu.

Wasting valuable time since 1985.

Rick DeNatale

7/21/2007 6:41:00 PM

On 7/20/07, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky <znmeb@cesmail.net> wrote:
> Rick DeNatale wrote:

> > It provides a qri command which pretty much directly substitutes for
> > ri. It's available as a gem.
> >
> IIRC it is *significantly* faster if you install from a tarball rather
> than as a gem, but I don't remember why. Can someone enlighten me?

This is true, BUT even when installed as a gem, it's significantly
faster than ri.

The difference kicks in when you use it a lot, for example when you
use Mauricio's tools which invoke it from inside textmate or vim.

--
Rick DeNatale

My blog on Ruby
http://talklikeaduck.denh...

IPMS/USA Region 12 Coordinator
http://ipmsr12.denh...

Visit the Project Mercury Wiki Site
http://www.mercuryspace...

Marc Heiler

7/21/2007 6:50:00 PM

I am a dreamer and i also admit i like CSS and good looking, visual
clean documentation in a browser, but i still hope that one day a huge,
up-to-date ruby reference can be read online, maintained with useful
remarks (optional) by a community - and that we can leave rdoc as a
relict of the past - or keept it for those that want it, while I could
read the fancy, stylish online docu! Dont take this too serious, i am
just wishing and hoping! And yeah, I do think that rdoc looks not very
... satisfying :>

--
Posted via http://www.ruby-....

benjohn

7/22/2007 2:18:00 PM

I've just had a quick play about with qri and ri...

> benjohn # qri syntax
> nil
> benjohn # qri nitro
> nil
> benjohn # qri ramaze
> nil
> benjohn # qri httpserver
> nil
> benjohn # qri tcpserver
> nil
> benjohn # qri TCP
> nil

I guess either I don't have much indexed, or I'm in need of a looser
search than the default? Do I need to do something to make sure ruby
and the Gems I've got installed are indexed? :-) I guess the likely
answer is YES!

Cheers,
Benj

SonOfLilit

7/22/2007 2:26:00 PM

On 7/21/07, Marc Heiler <shevegen@linuxmail.org> wrote:
> I am a dreamer and i also admit i like CSS and good looking, visual
> clean documentation in a browser, but i still hope that one day a huge,
> up-to-date ruby reference can be read online, maintained with useful
> remarks (optional) by a community - and that we can leave rdoc as a
> relict of the past - or keept it for those that want it, while I could
> read the fancy, stylish online docu! Dont take this too serious, i am
> just wishing and hoping! And yeah, I do think that rdoc looks not very
> ... satisfying :>

I've compiled my own rdoc of every library I have use and the core,
using a template I found online, and it looks VERY good, including
stuff like javascript search-as-you-type of the whole index (separate
for methods, files, classes).

Try that.

Aur

comp.lang.ruby

like man or apropos for Ruby

Phlip

Tim Hunter

John Joyce

Rick DeNatale

M. Edward (Ed) Borasky

Alex Young

Eugen Minciu

Rick DeNatale

Marc Heiler

benjohn

SonOfLilit

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