Ripper is a Ruby script parser.
You can get information from the parser with event-based style. Information such as abstract syntax trees or simple lexical analysis of the Ruby program.
Usage
Ripper provides an easy interface for parsing your program into a symbolic expression tree (or S-expression).
Understanding the output of the parser may come as a challenge, it's recommended you use PP to format the output for legibility.
require 'ripper'
require 'pp'
pp Ripper.sexp('def hello(world) "Hello, #{world}!"; end')
  #=> [:program,
       [[:def,
         [:@ident, "hello", [1, 4]],
         [:paren,
          [:params, [[:@ident, "world", [1, 10]]], nil, nil, nil, nil, nil, nil]],
         [:bodystmt,
          [[:string_literal,
            [:string_content,
             [:@tstring_content, "Hello, ", [1, 18]],
             [:string_embexpr, [[:var_ref, [:@ident, "world", [1, 27]]]]],
             [:@tstring_content, "!", [1, 33]]]]],
          nil,
          nil,
          nil]]]]
You can see in the example above, the expression starts with
:program.
From here, a method definition at :def, followed by the
method's identifier :@ident. After the method's
identifier comes the parentheses :paren and the method
parameters under :params.
Next is the method body, starting at :bodystmt
(stmt meaning statement), which contains the full definition
of the method.
In our case, we're simply returning a String, so next we have the
:string_literal expression.
Within our :string_literal you'll notice two
@tstring_content, this is the literal part for Hello,
 and !. Between the two @tstring_content
statements is a :string_embexpr, where embexpr is an
embedded expression. Our expression consists of a local variable, or
var_ref, with the identifier (@ident) of
world.
Resources
Requirements
- 
ruby 1.9 (support CVS HEAD only)
 - 
bison 1.28 or later (Other yaccs do not work)
 
License
Ruby License.
                                              Minero Aoki
                                      aamine@loveruby.net
                                    http://i.loveruby.net
    - CLASS Ripper::Filter
 
| PARSER_EVENTS | = | PARSER_EVENT_TABLE.keys | 
This array contains name of parser events.  | 
            ||
| SCANNER_EVENTS | = | SCANNER_EVENT_TABLE.keys | 
This array contains name of scanner events.  | 
            ||
| EVENTS | = | PARSER_EVENTS + SCANNER_EVENTS | 
This array contains name of all ripper events.  | 
            ||
Tokenizes the Ruby program and returns an array of an array, which is
formatted like [[lineno, column], type, token].
require 'ripper'
require 'pp'
pp Ripper.lex("def m(a) nil end")
  #=> [[[1,  0], :on_kw,     "def"],
       [[1,  3], :on_sp,     " "  ],
       [[1,  4], :on_ident,  "m"  ],
       [[1,  5], :on_lparen, "("  ],
       [[1,  6], :on_ident,  "a"  ],
       [[1,  7], :on_rparen, ")"  ],
       [[1,  8], :on_sp,     " "  ],
       [[1,  9], :on_kw,     "nil"],
       [[1, 12], :on_sp,     " "  ],
       [[1, 13], :on_kw,     "end"]]
            - EXPERIMENTAL
 - 
Parses
srcand create S-exp tree. Returns more readable tree rather than ::sexp_raw. This method is mainly for developer use.require 'ripper' require 'pp' pp Ripper.sexp("def m(a) nil end") #=> [:program, [[:def, [:@ident, "m", [1, 4]], [:paren, [:params, [[:@ident, "a", [1, 6]]], nil, nil, nil, nil]], [:bodystmt, [[:var_ref, [:@kw, "nil", [1, 9]]]], nil, nil, nil]]]] 
- EXPERIMENTAL
 - 
Parses
srcand create S-exp tree. This method is mainly for developer use.require 'ripper' require 'pp' pp Ripper.sexp_raw("def m(a) nil end") #=> [:program, [:stmts_add, [:stmts_new], [:def, [:@ident, "m", [1, 4]], [:paren, [:params, [[:@ident, "a", [1, 6]]], nil, nil, nil]], [:bodystmt, [:stmts_add, [:stmts_new], [:var_ref, [:@kw, "nil", [1, 9]]]], nil, nil, nil]]]] 
- EXPERIMENTAL
 - 
Parses
srcand return a string which was matched topattern.patternshould be described as Regexp.require 'ripper' p Ripper.slice('def m(a) nil end', 'ident') #=> "m" p Ripper.slice('def m(a) nil end', '[ident lparen rparen]+') #=> "m(a)" p Ripper.slice("<<EOS\nstring\nEOS", 'heredoc_beg nl $(tstring_content*) heredoc_end', 1) #=> "string\n" 
Tokenizes the Ruby program and returns an array of strings.
p Ripper.tokenize("def m(a) nil end")
   # => ["def", " ", "m", "(", "a", ")", " ", "nil", " ", "end"]