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FastRI is an alternative to the "ri" tool, used to browse RDoc/RI Ruby API documentation. As of 0.3.0, FastRI can operate in standalone mode (without using a DRb server, see below), so it can now fully replace ri for most intents and purposes.

Why prefer it over ri? FastRI

• actually works
• is much faster than ri
• can perform fast full-text searching over all your ri documentation
• is smarter than ri, and can find classes anywhere in the hierarchy without specifying the "full path"
• can be told to use different search strategies (completion, nested namespaces, etc.)
• supports RubyGems much better than ri, and knows which gem a method/class came from
• can serve RI documentation over DRb

User-visible changes since version 0.2.1 (2006-11-23)

• get all the information about a class/module and its methods with --extended
• new search methods: complete namespace (-Om), partial completion on both namespace and method name (-Of), and case-indep. variants.
• --local (-L) and --remote (-L) (default) options. --local makes fri operate in standalone mode, without requiring fastri-server.
• new executable: qri, equivalent to fri -L (local, standalone mode)
• try to second-guess the correct method type if all search methods fail and the type was explicitly given

Getting it

Additional information, tarballs... can be found here.

FastRI can be installed with RubyGems:

 gem install fastri

(if you get an old version/a 404 error, please allow some time after the release until the package propagates to the RubyForge mirrors). Please read below for an important note regarding the RubyGems packages.