From: Scott <bauer.mail@...>
Date: 2006-03-15T15:13:46+09:00
Subject: Re: Equivalent to ColdFusion's CFDUMP tag in Ruby on Rails?

arg....  You made me do it.  It sucks, but it works for basic types.
You must use it with an Array or Hash otherwise you get no headers:


class Object
	def to_html(value = self.to_s);
		return "<span class='RdBug_#{self.class.name}'>#{value}</span>"
	end
end

class String
	def to_html; super(self) end
end

class Symbol
	def to_html; super(':' + self.to_s) end
end

class NilClass
	def to_html; super('nil') end
end

class Hash
	def to_html
		html = "<table cellspacing=2 cellpadding=3
class='RdBug_Hash'><thead><td colspan=2
class='RdBug_HashHeader'>#{self.class}</td></thead>"
		self.each_pair do |k, v|
			html += "<tr><td
class='RdBug_HashKey'>#{k.to_html}</td><td>#{v.to_html}</td></tr>"
		end
		html += "</table>"
		super(html)
	end
end

class Array
	def to_html
		html = "<table cellspacing=2 cellpadding=3
class='RdBug_Array'><thead><td colspan=2
class='RdBug_ArrayHeader'>#{self.class}</td></thead>"
		self.size.times do |index|
			html += "<tr><td
class='RdBug_ArrayKey'>#{index}</td><td>#{self[index]}</td></tr>"
		end
		html += "</table>"
		super(html)
	end
end

variable = {
		"first"=> "1",
		:a23 => "second",
    "third"=> {
        nil => "inner third 1",
        "inner third 2"=>"yeah"
    },
		:values => [1, 2, 3, 4],
    nil => "fourth"
}

Then you can do:

<%= variable.to_html %>

To get output that looks very similar to the dBug stuff for Php.  I
used the styles that were at the link you provided, but I had to change
up the names to fit better:

<style type="text/css">
	table.RdBug_Array,table.RdBug_Object,table.RdBug_Hash,table.RdBug_String,table.RdBug_Symbol
{
		font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color:#000000;
font-size:12px;
	}

	.RdBug_ArrayHeader,
	.RdBug_ObjectHeader,
	.RdBug_HashHeader,
	.RdBug_StringCHeader,
	.RdBug_SymbolHeader
		{ font-weight:bold; color:#FFFFFF; }

	/* array */
	table.RdBug_Array { background-color:#006600; }
	table.RdBug_Array td { background-color:#FFFFFF; }
	table.RdBug_Array td.RdBug_ArrayHeader { background-color:#009900; }
	table.RdBug_Array td.RdBug_ArrayKey { background-color:#CCFFCC; }

	/* resource */
	table.RdBug_Hash { background-color:#006600; }
	table.RdBug_Hash td { background-color:#FFFFFF; }
	table.RdBug_Hash td.RdBug_HashHeader { background-color:#009900; }
	table.RdBug_Hash td.RdBug_HashKey { background-color:#CCFFCC; }

</style>