Is there a way in the Rails Console to print a table of database contents?

Question

I'm looking for a clean and simple way to print in the Rails Console the contents of my 5 row database with 2 columns.

Any ideas? I Googled around but didn't find much.

Answer 1

I think you should first use the hirb gem which provides a very pleasant way to print your tables columns.

1. Install hirb gem: gem install hirb
2. Add this gem to your project's Gemfile: gem 'hirb'
3. Go to your project's root folder and run Rails console: rails c

4. Enable hirb in the console:

   require 'hirb'
   Hirb.enable
   

If you want to limit the number of rows to display, you can do:

Model.limit(n)

For instance:

User.limit(5)

You can also specify the fields that you want to display using select:

User.select("name, email").limit(5)

Answer 2

You can also checkout table_print, it'll work something like this:

$ gem install table_print
$ rails c
> require 'table_print'
> tp Book.all
AUTHOR            | SUMMARY                         | TITLE
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael Connelly  | Another book by Michael Con...  | The Fifth Witness
Manning Mardale   | From acclaimed historian Ma...  | Malcolm X
Tina Fey          | Worth it. -Trees                | Bossypants