website :: http://rubygems.org/gems/devnull

Source code / Documentation :: https://github.com/maraigue/devnull

Ruby implementation of null file (like /dev/null on Un*x, NUL on Windows)

You can do the similar with a built-in constant File::NULL: the object open(File::NULL, "rw") behaves almost the same as the object DevNull.new.

After the library is developed (at Ruby 1.9.3), Ruby introduced the built-in constant File::NULL that represents the name of the (environment-dependent) null file.
Notice that, different from open(File::NULL, "rw"), DevNull.new does not use file-opening API.

DevNull instance works like an IO object. For example:

dn = DevNull.new
dn.puts "foo" # => nil (do nothing)
dn.gets # => nil
dn.read # => ""

The library may be a good solution if you would like to switch whether an input/output file is needed. For example:

def some_process(arg, logfile = nil)
  # You may set an IO object as 'logfile'.
  # If so, logs are written to the file.
  
  result = process1(arg)
  logfile.puts result if logfile
  
  result = process2(arg)
  logfile.puts result if logfile
  
  result = process3(arg)
  logfile.puts result if logfile
end

can be rewritten as follows:

def some_process(arg, logfile = DevNull.new)
  logfile.puts process1(arg)
  logfile.puts process2(arg)
  logfile.puts process3(arg)
end

Installed by RubyGems with the command (recommended):

$ gem install devnull

Or you can use it with downloading devnull.rb file and load it by require "./devnull".

(auto-generation by Hoe https://rubygems.org/gems/hoe)

After checking out the source, run:

$ rake newb

This task will install any missing dependencies, run the tests/specs, and generate the RDoc.

(The MIT License)

Copyright (c) 2011- H.Hiro (Maraigue)

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.