I've built a custom Ruby gem. Call it MyGem, then file lib/innermodule.rb contains:
module MyGem
module InnerModule
def self.foo(); puts "Hello world!"; end
end
end
To reference this from another gem that's in development I have to do:
require 'mygem'
require 'innermodule'
Is this normal behaviour, or is there a problem with the gemspec for MyGem?
I don't know if this is necessarily a problem with your gemspec since you usually just specify what files to include in a gem. Gemspecs don't really have anything to do with the way a gem gets required into another app.
It sounds like a problem with the way your gem is built/packaged specifically with regards to naming and file path conventions.
There are some common conventions that are usually followed for building gems and what I referenced above
http://guides.rubygems.org/patterns/ has a good overview.
Basically, you usually want to create a single file (usually the name of your gem) that sits in the "lib" directory. In this case, "lib/mygem.rb" would have individual requires for the internal dependencies of the gem.
#lib/mygem.rb
require 'innermodule'
Then to include the gem (as well as the inner module) in any other app, you could just do
require 'mygem'
Related
Try creating a gem based on bundler's official guide on developing a Ruby gem.
Running bundle gem foodie will create a structure and generate files in the lib directory:
foodie
version.rb
foodie.rb
foodie.rb reads
require "foodie/version"
module Foodie
# Your code goes here...
end
Running ruby lib/foodie.rb (or also from different directories) will result in
C:/Ruby23-x64/lib/ruby/2.3.0/rubygems/core_ext/kernel_require.rb:55:in `require': cannot load such file -- foodie/versio
n (LoadError)
from C:/Ruby23-x64/lib/ruby/2.3.0/rubygems/core_ext/kernel_require.rb:55:in `require'
from foodie.rb:1:in `<main>'
On the other hand installing the gem via rake install and then requiring the gem works just fine.
It works from source if require "foodie/version" is changed to require_relative "foodie/version" in foodie.rb. As I understand
require works based on modules
require_relative works based on directory structure
To me the latter looks like a hack. It'd no longer make sense to structure your code via modules as it wouldn't be enforced (maybe it'd still make sense but you could make mistakes and never notice).
My questions are:
Is it possible to test a gem from source without installing it while following the bundler convention (using require instead of require_relative)?
Why does the gem work after installed?
Is there any best practice for the usage of require, require_relative, modules, files and general structure?
Thank you.
You need to add your lib dir to Ruby’s load path. The load path is a list of directories that Ruby searches for files in when you call require. Rubygems also manages the load path when you are using gems, which is why your code works when installed as a gem.
You say “as I understand ... require works based on modules”, this is not correct. require works with files, it’s just convention that a class or module is defined in a file with a matching name, e.g. MyModule might be in my_module.rb.
There are a few ways to add a dir to the load path. From the command line you can use the -I option:
$ ruby -I lib lib/foodie.rb
If you wanted to avoid typing -I lib you could use the RUBYLIB environment variable. Ruby adds the contents of this to the load path:
$ export RUBYLIB=lib
$ ruby lib/foodie.rb
(On Windows I think you will need to use set rather than export.)
You can also manipulate the load path from withing the program itself. It is stored in the global variable $LOAD_PATH, aliased as :$. This is how Rubygems and Bundler manage your gems.
Is there any major difference between load and require in the Ruby on Rails applications? Or do they both have the same functionality?
require searches for the library in all the defined search paths and also appends
.rb or .so to the file name you enter. It also makes sure that a library is only
included once. So if your application requires library A and B and library B requries library A too A would be loaded only once.
With load you need to add the full name of the library and it gets loaded every time you
call load - even if it already is in memory.
Another difference between Kernel#require and Kernel#load is that Kernel#load takes an optional second argument that allows you to wrap the loaded code into an anonymous empty module.
Unfortunately, it's not very useful. First, it's easy for the loaded code to break out of the module, by just accessing the global namespace, i.e. they still can monkeypatch something like class ::String; def foo; end end. And second, load doesn't return the module it wraps the code into, so you basically have to fish it out of ObjectSpace::each_object(Module) by hand.
I was running a Rails application and in Gemfile, I had a specific custom gem I created with the option "require: false". Now when I loaded up rails server or rails console, I was able to require the gem in the initializer and the gem was loaded. However, when I ran a spec feature test with rspec and capybara, I got a load error. And I was completely bewildered why the Gem was not found in $LOAD_PATH when running a test.
So I reviewed all the different ways that load, require, rubygems and bundler interact. And these are a summary of my findings that helped me discover the solution to my particular problem:
load
1) You can pass it an absolute path to a ruby file and it will execute the code in that file.
load('/Users/myuser/foo.rb')
2) You can pass a relative path to load. If you are in same directory as file, it will find it:
> load('./foo.rb')
foo.rb loaded!
=> true
But if you try to load a file from different directory with load(), it will not find it with a relative path based on current working directory (e.g. ./):
> load('./foo.rb')
LoadError: cannot load such file -- foo.rb
3) As shown above, load always returns true (if the file could not be loaded it raises a LoadError).
4) Global variables, classes, constants and methods are all imported, but not local variables.
5) Calling load twice on the same file will execute the code in that file twice. If the specified file defines a constant, it will define that constant twice, which produces a warning.
6) $LOAD_PATH is an array of absolute paths. If you pass load just a file name, it will loop through $LOAD_PATH and search for the file in each directory.
> $LOAD_PATH.push("/Users/myuser")
> load('foo.rb')
foo.rb loaded!
=> true
require
1) Calling require on the same file twice will only execute it once. It’s also smart enough not to load the same file twice if you refer to it once with a relative path and once with an absolute path.
2) require returns true if the file was executed and false if it wasn’t.
3) require keeps track of which files have been loaded already in the global variable $LOADED_FEATURES.
4) You don’t need to include the file extension:
require 'foo'
5) require will look for foo.rb, but also dynamic library files, like foo.so, foo.o, or foo.dll. This is how you can call C code from ruby.
6) require does not check the current directory, since the current directory is by default not in $LOAD_PATH.
7) require_relative takes a path relative to the current file, not the working directory of the process.
Rubygems
1) Rubygems is a package manager designed to easily manage the installation of Ruby libraries called gems.
2) It packages its content as a zip file containing a bunch of ruby files and/or dynamic library files that can be imported by your code, along with some metadata.
3) Rubygems replaces the default require method with its own version. That version will look through your installed gems in addition to the directories in $LOAD_PATH. If Rubygems finds the file in your gems, it will add that gem to your $LOAD_PATH.
4) The gem install command figures out all of the dependencies of a gem and installs them. In fact, it installs all of a gem’s dependencies before it installs the gem itself.
Bundler
1) Bundler lets you specify all the gems your project needs, and optionally what versions of those gems. Then the bundle command installs all those gems and their dependencies.
2) You specify which gems you need in a file called Gemfile.
3) The bundle command also installs all the gems listed in Gemfile.lock at the specific versions listed.
4) Putting bundle exec before a command, e.g. bundle exec rspec, ensures that require will load the version of a gem specified in your Gemfile.lock.
Rails and Bundler
1) In config/boot.rb, require 'bundler/setup' is run. Bundler makes sure that Ruby can find all of the gems in the Gemfile (and all of their dependencies). require 'bundler/setup' will automatically discover your Gemfile, and make all of the gems in your Gemfile available to Ruby (in technical terms, it puts the gems “on the load path”). You can think of it as an adding some extra powers to require 'rubygems'.
ENV['BUNDLE_GEMFILE'] ||= File.expand_path('../../Gemfile', __FILE__)
require 'bundler/setup' if File.exist?(ENV['BUNDLE_GEMFILE'])
2) Now that your code is available to Ruby, you can require the gems that you need. For instance, you can require 'sinatra'. If you have a lot of dependencies, you might want to say “require all of the gems in my Gemfile”. To do this, put the following code immediately following require 'bundler/setup':
Bundler.require(:default)
3) By default, calling Bundler.require will require each gem in your Gemfile. If the line in the Gemfile says gem 'foo', :require => false then it will make sure foo is installed, but it won’t call require. You’ll have to call require('foo') if you want to use the gem.
So given this breadth of knowledge, I returned to the issue of my test and realized I had to explicitly require the gem in rails_helper.rb, since Bundler.setup added it to $LOAD_PATH but require: false precluded Bundler.require from requiring it explicitly. And then the issue was resolved.
I am creating a gem where I'd like to define some constants to be available.
In my actual gemspec, I added the following:
config = File.expand_path('../config', __FILE__)
$LOAD_PATH.unshift(config) unless $LOAD_PATH.include?(config)
require 'constants.rb'
In constants.rb I have a simple var defined: $FOO = "Hello, World!"
Then in my lib/gem_name/core.rb, I'm attempting to puts $FOO but it doesn't seem to be available. No error, just comes up blank. Am I not understanding how gem dependencies and the require tree works here?
** UPDATE **
I have also tried just adding a config directory directly underneath lib which is in the LOAD_PATH already. then in my library, I am attempting to require config/constants, but that's saying it cannot load such a file.
I have also tried just moving constants.rb to the lib directory directly and requiring that, and it's warning me that it cannot load such file. Something is terribly wonky.
According to Katz,
When your gem is built, Rubygems will run that code and create a static representation. This means it’s fine to pull your gem’s version or other shared details out of your library itself. Do not, however, use other libraries or dependencies.
That means that require 'constants.rb' and $LOAD_PATH.unshift(...) etc are run when you build the gem. At runtime, it doesn't change the $LOAD_PATH or cause a global require. Use gem.require_paths instead to modify $LOAD_PATH at runtime.
For example, in your gemspec, use
gem.files += Dir['config/**/*']
gem.require_paths = %w[lib config]
Then in places where $FOO is required, use
require 'constants'
Side Notes
You don't need to include the .rb extension when using require.
Make sure all the files you need are in gem.files.
I'm trying to create a gem with Bundler, following this guide: http://rakeroutes.com/blog/lets-write-a-gem-part-one/. In it, it says:
I incorrectly thought after taking my first look through the gemspec
that I would need to add more require statements as I developed my
gem. That isn’t the case: the files just need to be in git.
I am trying to clean up some of my old gems to use this convention, but when I install my gem, the classes from the other files are not available. I have a couple directories nested under my /lib dir, but I wouldnt think that would be an issue. Is there anything simple to overlook that would prevent my other files from being required? Any help would be appreciated.
In the link, when he says he doesn't need to add a lot of "require" statements, he must mean adding files to the s.files, s.executables, and s.test_files arrays--these determine what files get packaged up into the gem and what files get ignored. As you can see from the gem spec, whatever's tracked by git in certain directories is going to be included in the packaged gem.
Ruby's require is a different story. Standard require rules still apply.
Ruby's gem system works by adding a bunch of different places for Ruby to look for "foo.rb" when you run require "foo". If "lib" is your only require path for your gem, when you require "my_gem" Ruby is only going to run the code in lib/my_gem.rb. If lib/my_gem.rb doesn't require any other files in your gem, then Ruby hasn't seen them and so you'll get undefined constant errors when you try to use the classes from those files.
For examples, you might take a look at two simple gems I've written; both were started with bundle gem: HashToHiddenFields and SimpleStats. In both gems, main Ruby file in lib/ requires everything that needs to be loaded for the gem to work correctly. For example, hash_to_hidden_fields.rb requires action_view/helpers/hash_to_hidden_fields so that the ActionView::Helpers::HashToHiddenFields constant+module exists so we can include it into ActionView::Base.
Hope that answers the question. I know Ruby requiring was pretty fuzzy to me for a while.
I am editing a gem in which there are the usual require commands, pointing at the loaded gem (the gem I'm talking about is called nirvana, and the files in it contain require 'nirvana', require 'nirvana/shell' and so on).
When I use the bin-file of the application (/mypath/nirvana/bin/nirvana), I want the require 'nirvana' command written inside it to point to the files in the local fork of that gem (the ones I am editing), and I want not to load the original nirvana gem, that is installed with the classic gem install.
I don't want to substitute all the require 'nirvana' commands with
require File.dirname(File.expand_path(__FILE__)) + '/../lib/nirvana.rb'
... this would resolve my problem, but it's ugly! Is there a way to do not load nirvana gem, and to make require 'nirvana' load my libraries (maybe adding them in the $LOAD_PATH...) ?
You might be running into the require vs. require_relative conundrum in 1.9+.
require is good for loading a gem that is loaded via the normal gems paths, i.e., installed into Ruby's space.
require_relative is good for loading relative to a particular file, for instance, if you're loading a module you wrote and its in the same or a sub-directory or relative directory of yours.
`require_relative 'some/sub/dir/to/file'`
You should only be 'requiring' nirvana.rb once, if you're doing so from your gems binary executable. So this line only needs to appear once. It's quite common to see it appear in these files.
Do note your example can be better written as
require File.expand_path('../lib/nirvana.rb', __FILE__)
As File::expand_path takes an optional second argument (a directory String).
A lot of authors will also shift the lib directory into the $LOAD_PATH before executing the binary so the local files are loaded before attempting to load any installed gems.
If you're using rvm, have a look at gemsets. You can create a gemset that doesn't have the nirvana gem installed, then when you require 'nirvana' you'll only get your local libraries required, as there isn't a nirvana gem to include.
(I'm assuming you're using ruby 1.9, as if you're using 1.8 you could just omit require 'rubygems'.)