How to create a custom method for the rails console?

Question

When I\'m using the Rails console in Ubuntu for a long session I define the clear method:

def clear; system \'clear\' end

So when m

Answer 1

In case you like to define your console helpers in the realm of your rails-project-directory, there's another interesting approach: You can extend the Rails::ConsoleMethods-module, which holds well-known and handy console-stuff like app, helper, controller etc... Here's one easy way to do this:

Just add a module to your lib-directory that holds your custom console helpers and apply it to Rails::ConsoleMethods via mixin prepending - e.g.:

# Extending Rails::ConsoleMethods with custom console helpers
module CustomConsoleHelpers

  # ** APP SPECIFIC CONSOLE UTILITIES ** #

  # User by login or last
  def u(login=nil)
    login ? User.find_by_login!(login) : User.last
  end

  # Fav test user to massage in the console
  def honk
    User.find_by_login!("Honk")
  end

  # ...

  # ** GENERAL CONSOLE UTILITIES ** #

  # Helper to open the source location of a specific 
  # method definition in your editor, e.g.:
  #
  #   show_source_for(User.first, :full_name)
  #
  # 'inspired' (aka copy pasta) by 'https://pragmaticstudio.com/tutorials/view-source-ruby-methods' 
  def show_source_for(object, method)
    location = object.method(method).source_location
    `code --goto #{location[0]}:#{location[1]}` if location
    location
  end

  # ...
end

require 'rails/console/helpers'
Rails::ConsoleMethods.send(:prepend, CustomConsoleHelpers)

This works for me like a charm. Further alternatives to this approach (which I didn't test) would be to either put the above in an initializer (like here) - or to extend Rails::ConsoleMethods in config/application.rb instead - e.g. like this (found here and here):

console do
  require 'custom_console_helpers'
  Rails::ConsoleMethods.send :include, CustomConsoleHelpers
end