RubyMine 2020.1 Help

IRB console

RubyMine allows you to run the IRB console and interact with your application without leaving the IDE. You can use completion and navigation capabilities, run the console with additional options, and so on.

Before using the IRB console, make sure that the Ruby interpreter is configured for your project.

Run the IRB console

To run the IRB console in RubyMine, perform the steps below:

  • Do one of the following:

    • Press Ctrl twice, start typing IRB console, select the corresponding item in the popup and press Enter.

    • From the main menu, go to Tools | Run IRB Console.

RubyMine will load the IRB console with the selected project SDK.

IRB console

Note that the IRB console can be launched on a remote SDK.

Run the console with additional options

After you run the console for the first time, RubyMine creates the dedicated run configuration. If necessary, you can change the created configuration to provide additional options: preload your code into IRB, add additional libraries or gems, and so on. For example, to load code from the script.rb project file into the IRB console, perform the steps below:

  1. Open the Run/Debug Configurations dialog in one of the following ways:

    • Press Ctrl+Shift+A, start typing Edit Configurations, select it from the list and press Enter.

    • Expand the run/debug configuration selector on the main toolbar and select Edit Configurations.

      Edit run configurations

  2. In the invoked Run/Debug Configurations dialog, select the created IRB console configuration in the IRB Console group and specify the IRB Arguments option in the following way:

    -r ./script

    Click OK.

Run source code from the editor in the console

RubyMine allows you to run source code from the editor in the IRB console. To do this, perform the following steps:

  1. Open the required Ruby file in the editor (if necessary, select a fragment of code to be executed).

  2. From the main menu, choose Tools | Load file/selection into IRB/Rails console, or press Shift+Alt+L.

Use the IRB console

You can perform the following actions in a console:

  • Execute commands

    Type commands in the console and press Enter to execute them.

  • Multiline editing

    Type a line of code and press Shift+Enter to move the caret to the next line without executing a command.

  • Complete names

    Use basic code completion Ctrl+Space to complete names of classes, methods, and so on.

  • Navigate through history

    Use the Up and Down arrow keys to scroll through the history of commands and execute the required ones.

  • Navigate to source code

    To navigate to the initial declaration of a symbol and symbol's type, place the caret at the desired symbol and press Ctrl+B.

  • View quick documentation

    To get quick information for any symbol or method signature, place the caret at the desired symbol and press Ctrl+Q.

Last modified: 29 May 2020