# Syntax Checker that's better than the normal syntax checker **URL:** \ **Category:** Ruby\ **Created:** [July 15, 2008, 5:54am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/syntax-checker-thats-better-than-the-normal-syntax-checker/143092 "2008-07-15T05:54:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![hydroflamexz18](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@hydroflamexz18](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/hydroflamexz18)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2008, 5:54am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/syntax-checker-thats-better-than-the-normal-syntax-checker/143092/1 "2008-07-15T05:54:04Z")
I’ve been using the stupid built in syntax checker, it’s been making some mistakes is there any better syntax checker. Unrealistically, a standalone application were you paste in your code and it checks it. But anything other than the built in syntax checker will do. ---
**Author:** ![hydroflamexz18](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@hydroflamexz18](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/hydroflamexz18)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2008, 6:04am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/syntax-checker-thats-better-than-the-normal-syntax-checker/143092/2 "2008-07-15T06:04:43Z")
On Tue, Jul 15, 2008, Jacob Grover wrote: > I’ve been using the stupid built in syntax checker, it’s been making > some mistakes is there any better syntax checker. Unrealistically, a > standalone application were you paste in your code and it checks it. But > anything other than the built in syntax checker will do. Uh… what? If the built-in syntax checker isn’t catching an error… it’s not an error. The “built-in syntax checker” is the interpreter itself. Unless you’re talking about an IDE or something, in which case you should probably tell us what you mean… Ben ---
**Author:** ![hydroflamexz18](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@hydroflamexz18](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/hydroflamexz18)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2008, 8:01am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/syntax-checker-thats-better-than-the-normal-syntax-checker/143092/3 "2008-07-15T08:01:24Z")
On Tue, Jul 15, 2008, Joel VanderWerf wrote: > Maybe he’s referring to ruby -c ? Ah, that’s a good point. And further perhaps he means “gives better error messages”, since we’ve probably all felt the pain of ruby -c telling us that there’s a syntax error on the last (blank) line of the file. Ben ---
**Author:** ![hydroflamexz18](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@hydroflamexz18](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/hydroflamexz18)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2008, 6:49am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/syntax-checker-thats-better-than-the-normal-syntax-checker/143092/4 "2008-07-15T06:49:56Z")
Ben B. wrote: > Unless you’re talking about an IDE or something, in which case you > should probably tell us what you mean… > > Ben Maybe he’s referring to ruby -c ? ---
**Author:** ![hydroflamexz18](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@hydroflamexz18](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/hydroflamexz18)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2008, 7:12am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/syntax-checker-thats-better-than-the-normal-syntax-checker/143092/5 "2008-07-18T07:12:13Z")
Dave B. wrote: > > On Tue, Jul 15, 2008, Joel VanderWerf wrote: > > Maybe he’s referring to ruby -c ? > > ruby -cw surely! > > Ruby’s error messages are horribly obscure compared with Perl’s, which > are really quite friendly. A typical one would be something like “(Blah > blah blah) error. Maybe an unterminated string starting on line 42?” – > which it usually is. Or “Class Thing not found. Maybe you forgot to > include Thing.pm?” – which is usually the case. > > Dave > Cool, now I can use it because I would look for an endless string or too > little or too many ends and so on. ---
**Author:** ![hydroflamexz18](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@hydroflamexz18](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/hydroflamexz18)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2008, 1:50pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/syntax-checker-thats-better-than-the-normal-syntax-checker/143092/6 "2008-07-16T13:50:37Z")
> On Tue, Jul 15, 2008, Joel VanderWerf wrote: > Maybe he’s referring to ruby -c ? ruby -cw surely! Ruby’s error messages are horribly obscure compared with Perl’s, which are really quite friendly. A typical one would be something like “(Blah blah blah) error. Maybe an unterminated string starting on line 42?” – which it usually is. Or “Class Thing not found. Maybe you forgot to include Thing.pm?” – which is usually the case. Dave