Reek is a tool that examines Ruby classes, modules and methods and reports any code smells it finds. Install it like this:

$ gem install reek

and run it like this:

$ reek [options] [dir_or_source_file]*

For a full list of command-line options see the Reek wiki[http://wiki.github.com/kevinrutherford/reek/command-line-options] or run

$ reek --help

Imagine a source file demo.rb containing:

class Dirty
  # This method smells of :reek:NestedIterators but ignores them
  def awful(x, y, offset = 0, log = false)
    puts @screen.title
    @screen = widgets.map {|w| w.each {|key| key += 3}}
    puts @screen.contents
  end
end

Reek will report the following code smells in this file:

$ reek demo.rb
spec/samples/demo/demo.rb -- 6 warnings:
  Dirty has no descriptive comment (IrresponsibleModule)
  Dirty#awful has 4 parameters (LongParameterList)
  Dirty#awful has boolean parameter 'log' (ControlCouple)
  Dirty#awful has the parameter name 'x' (UncommunicativeName)
  Dirty#awful has the parameter name 'y' (UncommunicativeName)
  Dirty#awful has the variable name 'w' (UncommunicativeName)

Reek currently includes checks for some aspects of Control Couple, Data Clump, Feature Envy, Large Class, Long Method, Long Parameter List, Simulated Polymorphism, Uncommunicative Name and more. See the Reek wiki for up to date details of exactly what Reek will check in your code.

Reek integrates with many of your favourite tools:

• require 'reek/rake/task' to easily add Reek to your Rakefile
• require 'reek/spec' to add the should_not reek custom matcher to your Rspec examples
• Reek is fully compliant with Ruby 1.8.6, 1.8.7 and 1.9.1

Reek makes use of the following other gems:

• ruby_parser
• sexp_processor
• ruby2ruby

Find out more about Reek from any of the following sources:

• Browse the Reek documentation at http://wiki.github.com/kevinrutherford/reek
• Browse the code or install the latest development version from http://github.com/kevinrutherford/reek/tree
• Read the code API at http://rdoc.info/projects/kevinrutherford/reek
• Follow @rubyreek on twitter!