From: Stefano Crocco <stefano.crocco@...>
Date: 2007-04-07T21:46:12+09:00
Subject: Re: class hierarchy with rdoc

Alle sabato 7 aprile 2007, Googy ha scritto:
> Hi,
>
> I am newbie to ruby, I have extensive experience in java & with
> javadoc, javadoc shows class hierarchy i.e. its parent classes and
> interfaces in a tree view, so you can easily understand the whole
> hierarchy but when I moved to ruby the feature missing is to see the
> class hierarchy for ruby classes. Every time I can't fire irb and
> create an object and see its ancestors
>  (<obj>.class. ancestors).
>
> So am I missing something? Is it possible to see the class hierarchy
> in rdoc generated documentation ?
>
> Particularly when you go to http://www.ruby-doc.org/core/   for core
> documentation there is no way to see even Fixnum parent classes.
> Fixnum is only for example.   And from my experience good
> documentation plays important role in its adaptability.
>
> Suggest me if there are any alternative ruby documentation generators
> or class browsers.
>
> Thanks.

RDoc doesn't allow you to see the full class hierarchy, but it does allow you 
to see the parent class of a given class. It's specified just below the name 
of the class. Taking Fixnum as an example, at the beginning of the 
documentation page, there is:

Class  Fixnum
In: numeric.c
    lib/mathn.rb
    lib/rational.rb
    lib/rexml/xpath_parser.rb
Parent: Integer

This last line is the one you need. It tells you that the parent class of 
Fixnum is Integer.

You can also see it using ri: if you type, for example:

ri Fixnum,

the very first line you get says:

Class: Fixnum < Integer

which tells you the parent of Fixnum. If no parent is displayed, it means that 
the class inherit directly from Object.

I hope this helps

Stefano