Undocumented class: Sketchup::Console

[thomthom]

Sketchup::Console
Instance methods:

• write Outputs strings to the Ruby Console. Returns the length of the string. (Not newline terminated)

SKETCHUP_CONSOLE refers to an instance of Sketchup::Console.
Though you can make your own instance, it doesn't appear to make a difference.

This class can be useful if you want/need to redirect puts or p for debugging purposes and still output things to the console.

The puts method reversed engineered:

<span class="syntaxdefault">def puts</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">(</span><span class="syntaxdefault">value</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">)<br /></span><span class="syntaxdefault">  SKETCHUP_CONSOLE</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">.</span><span class="syntaxdefault">write</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">(</span><span class="syntaxstring">"#{value}\n"</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">)<br /></span><span class="syntaxdefault">  nil<br />end<br /></span>

[Dan Rathbun]

@thomthom said:

This class can be useful if you want/need to redirect puts or p for debugging purposes and still output things to the console.

The puts method reversed engineered:

<span class="syntaxdefault">def puts</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">(</span><span class="syntaxdefault">value</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">)<br /></span><span class="syntaxdefault">  SKETCHUP_CONSOLE</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">.</span><span class="syntaxdefault">write</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">(</span><span class="syntaxstring">"#{value}\n"</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">)<br /></span><span class="syntaxdefault">  nil<br />end<br /></span>

Careful!

If a user does that at the console (in Object,) they override the puts() method that ALL ruby objects inherit, including IO class and subclass objects, like File class.

Strange things might happen. You may wish to use a file instance's puts() method to write to the file, and not want it echoing to the console. (If the IO class overrides it's inherited puts() method, we may not have a problem.)

If you must override puts() then ONLY do it in your custom module or class.

I find it is safer (and more robust,) to use a custom echo() method, which can send to $stdout (which goes to the console anyway,) and / or send to a log file, or neither of them depending on a couple of boolean constants.

<span class="syntaxdefault">def echo</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">(</span><span class="syntaxdefault">value</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">)<br /></span><span class="syntaxdefault">  puts</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">(</span><span class="syntaxdefault">value</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">)</span><span class="syntaxdefault"> if ECHO<br />  </span><span class="syntaxkeyword">@</span><span class="syntaxdefault">logfile</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">.</span><span class="syntaxdefault">puts</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">(</span><span class="syntaxdefault">value</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">)</span><span class="syntaxdefault"> if LOGGING<br />  nil<br />end<br /></span>

P.S. I don't call it log() because of Math::log()

[thomthom]

It was just a pseudo code of how the puts behave in SU.