Issue #6130 has been reported by Thomas Sawyer. ---------------------------------------- Feature #6130: inspect using to_s is pain https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/6130 Author: Thomas Sawyer Status: Open Priority: Normal Assignee: Category: core Target version: 2.0.0 Every time I define #to_s on a class I have to remember to also redefine #inspect. It's annoying and has led me to waste hours debugging b/c the errors that can occur from it often seem strange and unrelated. I think #inspect should have an independent definition that outputs the class name, object_id and when possible instance variable settings, and should have nothing to do with #to_s by default. We developers can always alias it as such if it is appropriate. The only exception should be for classes that have literal representation in Ruby, such as Array, String, Hash, etc. In those cases the #inspect should give the literal representation. -- http://bugs.ruby-lang.org/