Working with Ruby
Hi, I am Jan. This is my old Ruby blog. I still post about Ruby, but I now do it on idiosyncratic-ruby.com. You should also install Irbtools to improve your IRB.

Small Ruby CLI Improvements (Part 4): Edit Ruby Objects Using yaml

March 2011, ruby · hints · irb

Somehow, I stumbled upon this useful little script by _why: Update

“Lovely, Simple, Prismatic I say it’s prismatic because this little snippy marries a few of my true loves together. Allow users to edit Ruby objects in YAML using your editor of choice.”

aorta 
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# why the luck stiff's "object aorta"
# https://rubyforge.org/snippet/detail.php?type=snippet&id=22

require 'yaml'
def aorta( obj )
  tempfile = File.join('/tmp',"yobj_#{ Time.now.to_i }")
  File.open( tempfile, 'w' ) { |f| f << obj.to_yaml }
  system( "#{ ENV['EDITOR'] || 'vi' } #{ tempfile }" )
  return obj unless File.exists?( tempfile )
  content = YAML::load( File.open( tempfile ) )
  File.delete( tempfile )
  content
end

Update: I’ve added this functionality to the interactive_editor gem, which is – thanks to github – now available with version 0.0.7 :D

[2,3,4].vim #=> [2,3,42]

Creative Commons License

scragz | March 10, 2011

I miss _why ><;

mkorfmann | March 11, 2011

Me too :( . But fractions of his work, like this one, never let him die :) .

andy | March 15, 2011

This looks cool!
Tried running [1,2,3].vim in IRB and got the error below. Just running 'vim' from the IRB prompt works ok.
Using Ubuntu / Ruby 1.8.7
TypeError: can't convert Tempfile into String
from /home/andyl/.gems/ruby/1.8/gems/interactive_editor-0.0.7/lib/interactive_editor.rb:35:in `initialize'
from /home/andyl/.gems/ruby/1.8/gems/interactive_editor-0.0.7/lib/interactive_editor.rb:35:in `open'
from /home/andyl/.gems/ruby/1.8/gems/interactive_editor-0.0.7/lib/interactive_editor.rb:35:in `edit'
from /home/andyl/.gems/ruby/1.8/gems/interactive_editor-0.0.7/lib/interactive_editor.rb:59:in `edit'
from /home/andyl/.gems/ruby/1.8/gems/interactive_editor-0.0.7/lib/interactive_editor.rb:96:in `vim'
from (irb):6

J-_-L | March 18, 2011

Oops, I'll fix that. Btw, no problems with 1.9 ;)

J-_-L | March 28, 2011

0.0.8 fixes the 1.8 issue