From: Andreas S <andreas_s@...>
Date: 2008-02-12T18:16:57+09:00
Subject: irb practice. Autoloading files

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I often found my self retyping a lot of lines when experimenting or testing=
 in irb after making some changes. I suppose I should be able to avoid it w=
ith a better planning, but...

Anyhow, I wrote a function in my .irbrc that reloads the listed file and it=
s dependencies so that I can work on my text editor (btw, I'm using vim) an=
d have irb automatically rerun my script after I made my changes (in the sp=
irit of Zen test's autotest). Something like this:

def auto_load main, *dependencies
  Thread.new do
      main_mtime  =3D File.mtime main; load main
      dep_mtime =3D {}
      dependencies.each {|f| dep_mtime[f] =3D File.mtime f; load f }
      loop do
         change =3D false
         dependencies.each do |f|
             if (t =3D File.mtime f) > dep_mtime[f]
               change =3D true; dep_mtime[f] =3D t; load f
             end
          end
          if (t =3D File.mtime main) > main_mtime or change
            main_mtime =3D t; load main
          end
          sleep 1
      end.run
end

It's rather crude, perhaps even a clumsy irb practice. I thought maybe othe=
r people have the same need and probably with a better solution. Does anybo=
dy have a suggestion for a better solution or a better practice when experi=
menting or testing with irb? Is there a ruby gem that would be helpful?

You may say "what's wrong with writing in test.rb and retyping load 'test.r=
b' after making changes?". Well, it's kind of nice to automate that, plus i=
f the change is in one of the 'require'd files, I need to re'load' that.

-andre

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