Tree-sitter Ruby Grammar

0.23.1 · active · verified Thu Apr 09

tree-sitter-ruby provides the Ruby grammar for the Tree-sitter parsing library. It enables Python applications to parse Ruby source code into concrete syntax trees. The library is actively maintained, with version 0.23.1 being the current stable release, and new versions are released periodically to update grammar rules or address issues.

Warnings

breaking The `Language.build_library` method was removed around `py-tree-sitter` version 0.21.x. Attempting to use it will raise an AttributeError.
Fix: Instead of `Language.build_library`, directly `pip install tree-sitter-<language>` (e.g., `pip install tree-sitter-ruby`). The installed package provides a pre-compiled grammar via its `language()` function, like `Language(tree_sitter_ruby.language())`.
gotcha The `parser.parse()` method expects source code as a `bytes` object, not a standard Python string. Passing a string will result in a `TypeError` or unexpected parsing behavior.
Fix: Ensure that your input source code is encoded into bytes, typically UTF-8, before passing it to the parser. For example, `code_string.encode('utf8')`.
gotcha While `tree-sitter-ruby` provides the Ruby grammar, the core parsing functionality (e.g., `Parser` class, `Language` class) is provided by the `tree-sitter` PyPI package. Both need to be installed.
Fix: Always ensure `pip install tree-sitter` is executed alongside `pip install tree-sitter-ruby` to have both the core bindings and the specific language grammar available.

Install

pip install tree-sitter tree-sitter-ruby Install core bindings and Ruby grammar

Imports

Language
```
from tree_sitter import Language
```
Required to load the compiled Ruby grammar.
Parser
```
from tree_sitter import Parser
```
The main class for parsing source code into a syntax tree.
tsruby.language()
```
import tree_sitter_ruby as tsruby
RUBY_LANGUAGE = Language(tsruby.language())
```
The `tree_sitter_ruby` package exposes its compiled grammar via the `language()` function, which is then passed to `tree_sitter.Language`.

Quickstart

This quickstart demonstrates how to initialize the Ruby grammar with `tree-sitter`, create a parser, and parse a simple Ruby code snippet. It shows how to access the root of the resulting syntax tree and some basic node properties.

import tree_sitter_ruby as tsruby
from tree_sitter import Language, Parser

# Load the Ruby language grammar
RUBY_LANGUAGE = Language(tsruby.language())

# Create a parser and set its language
parser = Parser()
parser.set_language(RUBY_LANGUAGE)

# Ruby code to parse (must be bytes)
ruby_code = b"""
def hello_world(name)
  puts "Hello, #{{name}}!"
end

hello_world("Alice")
"""

# Parse the code
tree = parser.parse(ruby_code)

# Get the root node of the syntax tree
root_node = tree.root_node

print(f"Root node type: {root_node.type}")
print(f"Number of children: {len(root_node.children)}")
# Example of traversing a child node
if root_node.children:
    first_child = root_node.children[0]
    print(f"First child type: {first_child.type}, text: {first_child.text.decode('utf8')}")

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