Question

I could use:

File.open('/dev/null', 'w')

on Unix systems, but if there is a Ruby way to achieve this, I’d like to use it. I am just looking for an I/O stream, that immediately "trashes" all writes, kind of like a null-object.

Answer 1

No, I don’t believe there is anything like a null stream in Ruby, at least in earlier versions. In that case, you must make one yourself. Depending on the methods that it will call, you will need to write
stub methods on the null stream class, like this:

class NullStream
   def <<(o); self; end
end

The above example is by no means complete. For example, some streams may require calling the write, puts or other methods. Moreover, some methods should be implemented by returning self in their methods, like <<, others not.