From: Robert Klemme <bob.news@...>
Date: 2006-01-09T02:43:06+09:00
Subject: Re: You want a Ruby extension? Talk to me, baby

Lou Vanek <vanek@acd.net> wrote:
> if you want to wade into the deep end, I would like a method that
> would tell me about everything that is in scope when the method is called,
> and classify the objects-in-scope as instance variables, class
> variables, class names, global constants, local variables, module
> names--whatever they might be. Symbol.all_symbols is just a tease.
>
> The next thing i would like to do is to be able to "unwind" the
> scope by going "up" one level and perform the same symbol dump as
> defined above, except with the new scope. Recurse until at top level.
> Being able to filter on any particular class of object would just be
> icing.
> Not even sure if this is possible, but it would sure be educational.

You can get quite far with set_trace_func:
http://ruby-doc.org/core/classes/Kernel.html#M001978

Just store the binding on a stack for all events like "call" and remove it 
for "return".

I'm sure with a decent C extension this will be more efficient and probably 
more feature rich.

Kind regards

    robert