While working on a sinatra app recently, I noticed that sinatra has no rails equivalent to rails console. So here’s tux, dressing your sinatra app in a console.

Install and Try On

$ gem install tux

In the directory of your sinatra app, try on tux:

$ tux # If app's rack config file isn't config.ru, specify it with -c $ tux -c app.ru # ruby options like -I and -r are available to tux $ tux -h Usage: tux [COMMAND] [ARGS] [OPTIONS] Options: -f Suppress loading ~/.irbrc -F Suppress loading ~/.riplrc -d, --debug Set $DEBUG to true (same as `ruby -d') -I PATH Add to front of $LOAD_PATH. Delimit multiple paths with ':' -r, --require FILE Require file (same as `ruby -r') -v, --version Print version -h, --help Print help -c, --config FILE Set rack config file i.e. config.ru

Interact with App Methods

Tux provides the app object to interact with your app’s methods. For example, to interact with helpers:

>> app.my_helper_method ...

Since app is an instance of Sintra::Base , it can interact with any built-in sinatra methods i.e. request and response specific helper methods:

# depends on request >> app.uri '/' => "http://:/" # depends on response >> app.headers => {"Content-Type"=>"text/html"}

For the above to work, tux sets up default empty request and response objects. To use custom requests and responses:

>> app.request = Sinatra::Request.new({}) => ... >> app.response = Sinatra::Response.new => ...

Last but not least, use app to interact with views:

>> app.erb :my_template => 'template rendered' # also >> app.haml >> app.markdown ...

Interact with App Responses

Tux let’s you make requests using http verbs thanks to rack-test. Use them to interact with your app’s response objects:

>> get '/' => #"text/html;charset=utf-8", "Content-Length"=>"4"}, @errors="127.0.0.1 - - [05/Apr/2011 02:22:27] \"GET / \" 200 4 0.0015

", @status=200, @original_headers={"Content-Type"=>"text/html;charset=utf-8", "Content-Length"=>"4"}, @body="dude"> >> _.headers => {"Content-Type"=>"text/html;charset=utf-8", "Content-Length"=>"4"} # last_response saves the response of your last request >> puts last_response.body dude >> post '/create', :user => 'cow', :password => 'abunga' ...

All http verb methods can take optional params and request headers as rack-test reveals. To see the full list of rack-test actions you can make:

>> rack.actions => [:request, :get, :post, :put, :delete, :head, :follow_redirect!, :header, :set_cookie, :clear_cookies, :authorize, :basic_authorize, :digest_authorize, :last_response, :last_request]

Commands and Configuration

Tux comes with commands to give you a good overview of your app:

# Displays routes defined by HTTP verb and order they were defined >> routes HEAD "/" HEAD "/book/:id" GET "/" GET "/book/:id" # Displays app settings configured via sinatra's #set method >> settings absolute_redirects true add_charset [/^text\//, "application/javascript", "application/xml", "application/xhtml+xml"] app_file "./sample.rb" bind "0.0.0.0" default_encoding "utf-8" dump_errors true empty_path_info nil environment :development lock false logging false method_override false port 4567 prefixed_redirects false public "/my/path/public" raise_errors false reload_templates true root "/my/path" run false running false server ["thin", "mongrel", "webrick"] session_secret "XXX" sessions false show_exceptions true static true views "/my/path/views"