How do I introspect things in Ruby?

Question

For instance, in Python, I can do things like this if I want to get all attributes on an object:

>>> import sys
>>> dir(sys)
[\'__displayhook__         


        

Answer 1

Sure, it's even simpler than in Python. Depending on what information you're looking for, try:

obj.methods

and if you want just the methods defined for obj (as opposed to getting methods on Object as well)

obj.methods - Object.methods

Also interesting is doing stuff like:

obj.methods.grep /to_/

To get instance variables, do this:

obj.instance_variables

and for class variables:

obj.class_variables