Pretty print any object... got a good snippet?

Hi all,

I'm reverse engineering a complex aspect of our Smalltalk application (no docs :( ).
In this sort of exercise I am a big fan of being able to pretty print the 'state' of an object at various points in the code.

I don't want to inspect live, I need it logged.

Save me sitting down and writing such a thing.

Got any good code snippets or suggest a class that's up my alley.

Appreciated. 

Regards, Matt.

Hello Matt, 

You may want to take a look to #storeString. It prints all the instVars in a way that you can "do it" and get back an object equal to the original. 

For example, "Locale current lcTime storeString" prints:

'((LCTime basicNew)
instVarAt: 1 put: ((Array basicNew: 7)
at: 1 put: ''Sun'';
at: 2 put: ''Mon'';
at: 3 put: ''Tue'';
at: 4 put: ''Wed'';
at: 5 put: ''Thu'';
at: 6 put: ''Fri'';
at: 7 put: ''Sat'';
yourself);
instVarAt: 2 put: ((Array basicNew: 7)
at: 1 put: ''Sunday'';
at: 2 put: ''Monday'';
at: 3 put: ''Tuesday'';
at: 4 put: ''Wednesday'';
at: 5 put: ''Thursday'';
at: 6 put: ''Friday'';
at: 7 put: ''Saturday'';
yourself);
instVarAt: 3 put: ((Array basicNew: 12)
at: 1 put: ''Jan'';
at: 2 put: ''Feb'';
at: 3 put: ''Mar'';
at: 4 put: ''Apr'';
at: 5 put: ''May'';
at: 6 put: ''Jun'';
at: 7 put: ''Jul'';
at: 8 put: ''Aug'';
at: 9 put: ''Sep'';
at: 10 put: ''Oct'';
at: 11 put: ''Nov'';
at: 12 put: ''Dec'';
yourself);
instVarAt: 4 put: ((Array basicNew: 12)
at: 1 put: ''January'';
at: 2 put: ''February'';
at: 3 put: ''March'';
at: 4 put: ''April'';
at: 5 put: ''May'';
at: 6 put: ''June'';
at: 7 put: ''July'';
at: 8 put: ''August'';
at: 9 put: ''September'';
at: 10 put: ''October'';
at: 11 put: ''November'';
at: 12 put: ''December'';
yourself);
instVarAt: 5 put: ''%l:%M:%S %p %z/%f/%Y'';
instVarAt: 6 put: ''%z/%f/%Y'';
instVarAt: 7 put: ''%l:%M:%S %p'';
instVarAt: 8 put: ((Array basicNew: 2)
at: 1 put: ''AM'';
at: 2 put: ''PM'';
yourself);
instVarAt: 9 put: ''%l:%M:%S %p'';
instVarAt: 10 put: ((Array basicNew: 7)
at: 1 put: #''format_l:date:time:'';
at: 2 put: '':'';
at: 3 put: #''format_M:date:time:'';
at: 4 put: '':'';
at: 5 put: #''format_S:date:time:'';
at: 6 put: '' '';
at: 7 put: #''format_p:date:time:'';
yourself);
instVarAt: 11 put: ((Array basicNew: 5)
at: 1 put: #''format_z:date:time:'';
at: 2 put: ''/'';
at: 3 put: #''format_f:date:time:'';
at: 4 put: ''/'';
at: 5 put: #''format_Y:date:time:'';
yourself);
instVarAt: 12 put: ((Array basicNew: 13)
at: 1 put: #''format_l:date:time:'';
at: 2 put: '':'';
at: 3 put: #''format_M:date:time:'';
at: 4 put: '':'';
at: 5 put: #''format_S:date:time:'';
at: 6 put: '' '';
at: 7 put: #''format_p:date:time:'';
at: 8 put: '' '';
at: 9 put: #''format_z:date:time:'';
at: 10 put: ''/'';
at: 11 put: #''format_f:date:time:'';
at: 12 put: ''/'';
at: 13 put: #''format_Y:date:time:'';
yourself);
yourself)'

So...with objects with long collections this method may be too much, but I just wanted to share it with you in case it could work as a first step. 

Best, 

Mariano

On Wed, May 5, 2021 at 8:48 AM Louis LaBrunda <[hidden email]> wrote:

Hi Matt,

I'm not sure if this is what you are looking for or if you already know about it but here goes.  Many if not most classes have the #printOn: method where they print much of their internals on a stream.  If you send an instance #printString, a stream is created, #printOn: is sent with the stream and the contents of the stream are returned as a string.  If your classes don't have #printOn:, you should write it for those you are interested in.  You don't need to write #printString as #Object already has it and it will use your #printOn: method.  This is also used (in part) when you inspect instances.

Lou

On Wednesday, May 5, 2021 at 5:59:50 AM UTC-4 [hidden email] wrote:

Hi all,

I'm reverse engineering a complex aspect of our Smalltalk application (no docs :( ).
In this sort of exercise I am a big fan of being able to pretty print the 'state' of an object at various points in the code.

I don't want to inspect live, I need it logged.

Save me sitting down and writing such a thing.

Got any good code snippets or suggest a class that's up my alley.

Appreciated. 

Regards, Matt.

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Mariano Martinez Peck Senior Software Engineer  [hidden email]  @MartinezPeck  /mariano-martinez-peck  instantiations.com