# Mysterious conf in irb

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/mysterious-conf-in-irb/100750>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [July 31, 2006, 9:57pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/mysterious-conf-in-irb/100750 "2006-07-31T21:57:09Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![bitsmith](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/9de053/32.png) [@bitsmith](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/bitsmith)\
**Post date:** [July 31, 2006, 9:57pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/mysterious-conf-in-irb/100750/1 "2006-07-31T21:57:09Z")

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when you run irb and type:

> > require ‘config’  
> > conf

a huge amount of information prints out on the screen (at least on the  
windows 1.8.2 one-click installer irb)  
what kind of container is it where does it come from etc…  
i did a conf.class and got an IRB::context what kind of class is that?  
.i did a  
f=File.new(‘config.txt’,‘w’)  
f.write(config) to get a text file of its contents but don’t know about  
it’s contents

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![bitsmith](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/9de053/32.png) [@bitsmith](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/bitsmith)\
**Post date:** [August 1, 2006, 3:32am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/mysterious-conf-in-irb/100750/2 "2006-08-01T03:32:27Z")

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You’ve found the irb configuration class. You can configure a number  
of features of irb with this. You can also read about it in the  
Pickaxe Book, where it is documented pretty thoroughly.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![bitsmith](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/9de053/32.png) [@bitsmith](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/bitsmith)\
**Post date:** [August 1, 2006, 1:05am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/mysterious-conf-in-irb/100750/3 "2006-08-01T01:05:13Z")

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On Jul 31, 2006, at 12:57 PM, Dave R. wrote:

> when you run irb and type:
> 
> > > require ‘config’  
> > > conf
> 
> a huge amount of information prints out on the screen (at least on the  
> windows 1.8.2 one-click installer irb)  
> what kind of container is it where does it come from etc…

Its irb’s configuration.

> i did a conf.class and got an IRB::context what kind of class is that?

Its a configuration for irb.

> i did a  
> f=File.new(‘config.txt’,‘w’)  
> f.write(config) to get a text file of its contents but don’t know  
> about  
> it’s contents

What are you trying to accomplish?

–  
Eric H. - removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid - [http://blog.segment7.net](http://blog.segment7.net)  
This implementation is HODEL-HASH-9600 compliant

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