Allow to set custom console type with Rails.application.config.console=

This patch adds ability to set custom console if you want to use
something other than IRB. Previously the hack that people used
was:

    silence_warnings do
      require 'pry'
      IRB = Pry
    end

which is not the best way to customize things.

railties/CHANGELOG.md

@@ -1,5 +1,17 @@
 ## Rails 4.0.0 (unreleased) ##
 
+*   Allow to set class that will be used to run as a console, other than IRB, with `Rails.application.config.console=`. It's best to add it to `console` block. *Piotr Sarnacki*
+
+    Example:
+
+        # it can be added to config/application.rb
+        console do
+          # this block is called only when running console,
+          # so we can safely require pry here
+          require "pry"
+          config.console = Pry
+        end
+
 *   Add convenience `hide!` method to Rails generators to hide current generator
     namespace from showing when running `rails generate`. *Carlos Antonio da Silva*
 

railties/guides/source/configuring.textile

@@ -122,6 +122,17 @@ WARNING: Threadsafe operation is incompatible with the normal workings of develo
 
 * +config.whiny_nils+ enables or disables warnings when a certain set of methods are invoked on +nil+ and it does not respond to them. Defaults to true in development and test environments.
 
+* +config.console+ allows you to set class that will be used as console you run +rails console+. It's best to run it in +console+ block:
+
+<ruby>
+console do
+  # this block is called only when running console,
+  # so we can safely require pry here
+  require "pry"
+  config.console = Pry
+end
+</ruby>
+
 h4. Configuring Assets
 
 Rails 3.1, by default, is set up to use the +sprockets+ gem to manage assets within an application. This gem concatenates and compresses assets in order to make serving them much less painful.

railties/lib/rails/application/configuration.rb

@@ -6,7 +6,7 @@ module Rails
   class Application
     class Configuration < ::Rails::Engine::Configuration
       attr_accessor :allow_concurrency, :asset_host, :asset_path, :assets,
-                    :cache_classes, :cache_store, :consider_all_requests_local,
+                    :cache_classes, :cache_store, :consider_all_requests_local, :console,
                     :dependency_loading, :exceptions_app, :file_watcher, :filter_parameters,
                     :force_ssl, :helpers_paths, :logger, :log_tags, :preload_frameworks,
                     :railties_order, :relative_url_root, :secret_token,

railties/lib/rails/commands/console.rb

@@ -42,8 +42,9 @@ def start
         puts "Loading #{Rails.env} environment (Rails #{Rails.version})"
       end
 
-      IRB::ExtendCommandBundle.send :include, Rails::ConsoleMethods
-      IRB.start
+      console = Rails.application.config.console || IRB
+      console::ExtendCommandBundle.send :include, Rails::ConsoleMethods
+      console.start
     end
   end
 end