Pry (software)

Pry is an interactive shell for the Ruby programming language. It is notable for its Smalltalk-inspired^[1] ability to start a REPL within a running program. This lets programmers debug and modify the current state of a system.

Pry REPL
Developer(s)	John Mair (banisterfiend), Conrad Irwin, …many more
Stable release	0.11.1 / September 26, 2017 (2017-09-26)
Repository	github.com/pry/pry
Written in	Ruby
Operating system	Cross-platform
Platform	Ruby interpreter
Type	Ruby shell
License	MIT License
Website	pry.github.io

Features

Pry exposes most of its introspective capabilities using a filesystem metaphor.^[2] For example, it has a cd command to start interacting with a particular object, and uses ls to list methods and variables.

It is possible to start Pry at any point inside a running program.^[3] Due to the reflective nature of Ruby, this lets the programmer inspect the program, change its current state, or correct the source code without restarting the process.

A number of third party plugins are available for Pry,^[1] these add tighter integration with other Ruby projects, enhance the abilities of Pry itself, and make Pry available over a remote connection.

See also

• Free and open-source software portal

• Comparison of computer shells
• IPython — A similar piece of software for the Python programming language
• SLIME — An interactive Lisp shell for Emacs
• Tweak — A Smalltalk programming environment