Is there a way in the Rails Console to print a table of database contents?

Question

I'm looking for a clean and simple way to print in the Rails Console the contents of my 5 row database with 2 columns. Any ideas? I Googled around but didn't find much.

Accepted Answer

I think you should first use the hirb gem which provides a very pleasant way to print your tables columns.

- Install hirb gem: `gem install hirb`

- Add this gem to your project's Gemfile: `gem 'hirb'`

- Go to your project's root folder and run Rails console: `rails c`

Enable hirb in the console:

```
require 'hirb'
Hirb.enable
```

If you want to limit the number of rows to display, you can do:

```
Model.limit(n)
```

For instance:

```
User.limit(5)
```

You can also specify the fields that you want to display using select:

```
User.select("name, email").limit(5)
```

Is there a way in the Rails Console to print a table of database contents?

Solution

Problem