Calling an ApplicationController method from console in Rails

Question

In Rails, supposing that the file is already loaded, how it is possible to call my_method from this example from console?

# some_file.rb
class MyClass < ApplicationController::Base
  def my_method(args)

Answer 1

It is not exactly the question asked, but you can also debug with the pry gem, similarly to debugger.

Add to the Gemfile:

gem "pry"
gem "pry-remote"
gem "pry-stack_explorer"
gem "pry-debugger"

In your method:

def myMethod
  binding.pry
  # some code
end

Done!

When you run your method, the page processing will freeze at binding.pry and pry will take over the prompt. Type n for each new step of the method, and play around with your variables that can be print (just typing them) in "real-time"!

Answer 2

Another, very simple way to do this is to use an instance of ApplicationController itself.

ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
  def example
    "O HAI"
  end
end

Then in the console, you can do the following:

>> ApplicationController.new.example

This will output the following:

O HAI

This, of course, has the restriction of not having access to everything a normal request would, such as the request object itself. If you need this, as the Patrick Klingemann suggested, you could use the debugger... I personally recommend using Pry:

• Pry on RubyGems.org
• RailsCast: Pry with Rails

This is likely much too late for you, but hopefully it will help someone in the future.

Answer 3

use debugger:

in your Gemfile add:

gem 'debugger'

then from the terminal:

> bundle
> rails s --debugger

in the controller action you're hitting:

class WidgetsController < ApplicationController
  def index
    debugger
    @widgets = Widget.all
    respond_with @widgets
  end
end

then point your browser to: http://localhost:3000/widgets, the page will not finish loading. Return to the terminal where your server is running and you'll be in an interactive debugging session where you can run: my_method