Redirecting Console Output: File

If you have occasion to require to redirect some console output produced by your code to a file, you can accomplish this with a few lines of code like so:

  f = File::open('console.log', 'w')
  begin
    temp_std_out = STDOUT.clone
    STDOUT.reopen(f)
    puts 'this will go to the file'
  ensure
    STDOUT.reopen(temp_std_out)
    puts 'this will go to the screen'
  end

Suppressing Console Output

There are times when suppressing console output would be very useful. Lets say you have a class your writing a spec for which produces allot of console output. When your spec runs, the output can be very noisy. In such a case you can do the following:

   describe NoisyClass do
     before :all do
        @noisy = NoisyClass.new
        silence_stream(STDOUT) do
           #The console output in this block
           #will never be seen
           @noisy.generate_console_output
        end
     end
   end

The 'silence_stream' method is defined in 'vendor/rails/activesupport/lib/active_support/core_ext/kernel/reporting.rb' and is used to silence any stream for the duration of the block.