Print the actual Ruby code of a block?

Question

Is this possible?

def block_to_s(&blk)
  #code to print blocks code here
end

puts block_to_s do
  str = "Hello"
  str.reverse!
  print str
end

This would print the follow to the terminal:

str = "Hello"
str.reverse!
print str

Answer 1

This question is related to:

• Converting Proc and Method to String
• How to extract the code from a Proc object?
• Ruby block to string instead of executing
• Compare the Content, Not the Results, of Procs

1. before Ruby 2.0, you can use the .to_source method

2. Ruby 2.0 and higher .to_source has been replaced by .source

3. using the gem 'sourcify', you can get something close to the block, but not exactly the same:

   require 'sourcify'

   def block_to_s(&blk) blk.to_source(:strip_enclosure => true) end

   puts block_to_s { str = "Hello" str.reverse! print str }

In above, notice that you either have to put parentheses around the argument of puts (block_to_s ... end) or use {...} instead of do ... end because of the strength of connectivity as discussed repeatedly in stackoverflow.

This will give you:

str = "Hello"
str.reverse!
print(str)

which is equivalent to the original block as a ruby script, but not the exact same string.

4. also see the method_source gem github.com/banister/method_source