Programming Tutorials

Prompts, Command Lines, Prompts, and irb in Ruby on rails

By: Balram Thakar in Ruby Tutorials on 2008-10-17  

There are two kinds of prompts command-line prompts and irb prompts. If you type a command meant for the command-line interpreter to irb (or vice versa), you'll get confusing results. If what you see on your screen is nothing like what the book tells you to expect, check that you're typing at the right prompt.

If you're typing the command line and should be typing to irb, start irb:

prompt> irb

If you're typing to irb and should be typing at the command line, exit irb:

irb(main):001:0> exit

Working with Prompts

You'll often make typing mistakes at a prompt. On some systems, the Up Arrow key will reinsert the previous line at the current prompt. You can then use the Back Arrow and Forward Arrow keys to move around in the line.

It's often convenient to edit complicated text in an editor and then copy and paste it to irb. It's easier to switch back to the editor, correct the mistake, and re-paste it than it is to fool around with the arrow keys. On the Mac and other Unix-like systems, the cut, copy, and paste keystrokes work as you"d expect. For example, on the Mac, DV pastes into the Terminal window. In that window, you can select a range of text, copy it with DC, and then paste it into an editor window.

On Windows, you'll paste to the command line with a right click rather than the normal Ctrl + V . Alternately, you can use an Edit menu that you get by right-clicking the title bar. To copy from the Windows command line, select text with the mouse, and then press Enter . If that doesn't work, make sure you have "quick edit" turned on. Open the Properties dialog (via the control menu you get with Alt + Space or by right-clicking in the title bar), go to the Options tab, and check Quick Edit Mode.






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