Formatting Ruby’s prettyprint

#!/usr/bin/ruby1.8

require 'pp'
mooth = [
  "booth", "month", "mooch", "morth",
  "mouth", "mowth", "sooth", "tooth"
]
PP.pp(mooth, $>, 40)
# => ["booth",
# =>  "month",
# =>  "mooch",
# =>  "morth",
# =>  "mouth",
# =>  "mowth",
# =>  "sooth",
# =>  "tooth"]
PP.pp(mooth, $>, 79)
# => ["booth", "month", "mooch", "morth", "mouth", "mowth", "sooth", "tooth"]

To change the default with a monkey patch:

#!/usr/bin/ruby1.8

require 'pp'

class PP
  class << self
    alias_method :old_pp, :pp
    def pp(obj, out = $>, width = 40)
      old_pp(obj, out, width)
    end
  end
end

mooth = ["booth", "month", "mooch", "morth", "mouth", "mowth", "sooth", "tooth"]
pp(mooth)
# => ["booth",
# =>  "month",
# =>  "mooch",
# =>  "morth",
# =>  "mouth",
# =>  "mowth",
# =>  "sooth",
# =>  "tooth"]

These methods also work in MRI 1.9.3