Rails - Oct 2012 - where is the definition of render method?

Hi all,

I am a begginer on Ruby on Rails, and have only a month experience about 
ruby itself.
Before doing this, I have worked for some works using C/C++ and PHP  for 
several years.
 
I''ve been learning with a few books since last thursday and had a
question
about render method.
I made a Rails application named ''hello'' with command
execution ''rails
generate controller hello''.
Then found the file, which was generated as
''hello_controller.rb''. It was
like this:  

class HelloController < ApplicationController
end

The book I''ve been using suggests adding a method, for example:

class HelloController < ApplicationController
  def index
    render :text => ''hello world''
  end
end

I know this code works, but I couldn''t find the definition of render
method
in the API document
at http://api.rubyonrails.org, probably because I was(am) new to these 
document.

But I wanted to know what the render method can do,
so I tried to make some codes to find the definition as bellow, and saw the 
result.

-- hello_controller.rb --
class HelloController < ApplicationController
  
  def index
    @controller_name =  self.class.to_s
    included_modules = self.class.included_modules
    
    @ancestors = self.class.ancestors
    ancestor_classes = @ancestors - included_modules
    
    @ancestor_classes = 
      ancestor_classes.map{|ac|
        [ac, [eval("#{ac}.class.public_instance_methods"),
              eval("#{ac}.class.protected_instance_methods"),
              eval("#{ac}.class.private_instance_methods")]]
      }      
      
     @included_modules       included_modules.map{|im|
        [im, [eval("#{im}.class.public_instance_methods"),
              eval("#{im}.class.protected_instance_methods"),
              eval("#{im}.class.private_instance_methods")]]
      }
      @included_modules.delete_if{|e| e[1][0] == nil}
  end
end

-- index.html.erb --
<h1><%=@controller_name -%>class list</h1>
<ul>
<% @ancestor_classes.each do |ac| %>
  <li>
    <h2><%= ac[0] %></h2>
    <dl>
      <dt>public methods</dt>
      <dd>
        <ul>
        <% ac[1][0].each do |method| %>
          <li><%= method %></li>
        <% end %>
        </ul>
      </dd>
      <dt>protected methods</dt>
      <dd>
        <ul>
        <% ac[1][1].each do |method| %>
          <li><%= method %></li>
        <% end %>
        </ul>
      </dd>
      <dt>private methods</dt>
      <dd>
        <ul>
        <% ac[1][2].each do |method| %>
          <li><%= method %></li>
        <% end %>
        </ul>
      </dd>
    </dl>
  </li>
<% end %>
</ul>
<h1><%=@controller_name -%>included modules </h1>
<ul>
<% @included_modules.each do |im| %>
  <li>
    <h2><%= im[0] %></h2>
    <dl>
      <dt>public methods</dt>
      <dd>
        <ul>
        <% im[1][0].each do |method| %>
          <li><%= method %></li>
        <% end %>
        </ul>
      </dd>
      <dt>protected methods</dt>
      <dd>
        <ul>
        <% im[1][1].each do |method| %>
          <li><%= method %></li>
        <% end %>
        </ul>
      </dd>
      <dt>private methods</dt>
      <dd>
        <ul>
        <% im[1][2].each do |method| %>
          <li><%= method %></li>
        <% end %>
        </ul>
      </dd>
    </dl>
  </li>
<% end %>
</ul>
 

But this didn'' work. Even a definition named ''render''
wasn''t found.
Is the above code wrong?  of course that is possible, I think.
Or, simply I should look up any other good API document site,
which is easier to use for begginers like me??

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