ruby - List cookbook dynamically without sub-shell -

i can retrieve cookbook list invoking knife in sub-shell (and parse output) such as:

cb = `knife cookbook list` 

another approach invoking ruby classes/modules directly such as:

require("chef") require("chef/knife") chef::config.from_file(knifepath) #knifepath declared priori cookbooks = chef::knife.run(["cookbook", "list"]) puts(cookbooks) # => nil 

how can store data printed on screen calling chef::knife.run() variable?

you need outside of knife one. knife delegates chef::cookbookloader (lower down stack) , therefore can use cookbook loader directly:

require 'chef/config' require 'chef/cookbook_loader'  chef::config.from_file(path) cookbooks = chef::cookbookloader.new(chef::config.cookbook_path).map(&:cookbook_name) 

for example, knife-spork uses pattern load cookbooks.

note actual cookbook objects, not names. if want little more lightweight, iterate on each cookbook_path , metadata.rb:

# https://gist.github.com/fnichol/4343327 class metadatachopper < hash    def self.extract(metadata_file)     mc = new(file.expand_path(metadata_file))     [mc[:name], mc[:version]]   end    def initialize(metadata_file)     eval(io.read(metadata_file), nil, metadata_file)   end    def method_missing(meth, *args, &block)     self[meth] = args.first   end end  require 'chef/config' cookbook_paths = chef::config.from_file(path).cookbook_path  cookbooks = dir[*cookbook_paths.map { |p| "#{p}/**/metadata.rb" }].collect |metadata|   metadatachopper.new(metadata)[:name] || file.basename(file.dirname(cookbook)) end