Variable value "dump"

[Brian Takita]

Hello,

Is there a way to loop through and display all of the local variable
symbols and values in a function?

I would like to use this to log exceptions.

Thank you,
Brian Takita

[Brian Takita]

It looks like there is a Kernal.local_variable method that returns an
Array of the local variable names.

So I can print out the local variables with their values this way. Is
there a way to do this without using eval?

a = 1

local_variables.each do |vn|
val = ''
eval("val=#{vn}")
print "#{vn}=#{val}"
end

[Robert Klemme]

Brian Takita <brian....@gmail.com> wrote:
> It looks like there is a Kernal.local_variable method that returns an
> Array of the local variable names.
>
> So I can print out the local variables with their values this way. Is
> there a way to do this without using eval?

I don't think so.

> a = 1
>
> local_variables.each do |vn|
> val = ''
> eval("val=#{vn}")
> print "#{vn}=#{val}"
> end

Here are some variants

local_variables.each do |vn|
print "#{vn}=#{eval vn}\n"
end

var_dump = local_variables.inject "" do |dump,vn|
dump << vn << "=" << eval(vn).inspect << "\n"
end

Alternatively you can put a binding into the exception that can be used to
retrieve variable values when needed. Semantics are a bit differnt though
(i.e. values might change between the time when the exception is thrown and
the evaluation). Example:

class MyError < Exception
def initialize(msg, bnd)
super(msg)
@bnd = bnd
end

def dump_var
eval("local_variables", @bnd).inject "" do |dump,vn|
dump << vn << "=" << eval(vn, @bnd).inspect << "\n"
end
end
end

def foo(args={})
bar = "hello"
raise MyError.new "something wrong", binding
end

begin
foo(:x => :u, :name => "nonsense", :numbers => [1,5,67])
rescue MyError => e
puts e, "variables:", e.dump_var
end

Prints

something wrong
variables:
args={:x=>:u, :numbers=>[1, 5, 67], :name=>"nonsense"}
bar="hello"

Kind regards

robert

[Dave Burt]

Brian Takita wrote...

> Is there a way to do this without using eval?

> ...

No, but I feel it should be less than 5 lines:

local_variables.each {|name| puts name + "=" + eval(name).inspect }

Cheers,
Dave