please disregard this, it seems to work outside irb too. in still outputs 
too much stuff in my case but it still does not loop forever.

konstantin


"konsu" <konsu / hotmail.com> wrote in message 
news:99GdnSW6bqFtW23eRVn-jQ / kallback.com...
> hello,
>
> is there  a way to inspect an object only to a given depth to avoid 
> infinite loops in case of referential loops? like irb does:
>
> irb(main):001:0> a = Object.new
> => #<Object:0x2be6cd0>
> irb(main):002:0> b = Object.new
> => #<Object:0x2be4900>
> irb(main):003:0> a.instance_variable_set(:@b, b)
> => #<Object:0x2be4900>
> irb(main):004:0> b.instance_variable_set(:@a, a)
> => #<Object:0x2be6cd0 @b=#<Object:0x2be4900 @a=#<Object:0x2be6cd0 ...>>>
> irb(main):005:0> a.inspect
> => "#<Object:0x2be6cd0 @b=#<Object:0x2be4900 @a=#<Object:0x2be6cd0 ...>>>"
> irb(main):006:0>
>
> thanks
> konstantin
>