Ruby: install gem if user does not have it installed - ruby

I have a ruby script that I want to send to a couple of coworkers. Instead of telling them to install a few required gems, is there a safe way to have ruby install them if not found?
For example, a user doesn't have the yui-compressor gem. Instead of the terminal displaying an error when they run ruby example.rb it would automatically run gem install -r yui-compressor for them. Is there a way to handle this?

You could use a tool like bundler: http://gembundler.com/

Related

Can't install gem using Bundler's Rakefile install task when developing a custom gem

I'm developing a couple of private gems and I think I don't understand correctly the PATH/GEM_PATH and/or Bundler/RVM installation flow, would love if someone could chip in.
I have a repository with two gems (A & B for simplicity sake). I've developed the gems using the scaffolding + following the guidelines provided by this bundler tutorial.
Thanks to the Bundler project I have a few Rakefile tasks like rake build, rake install, rake install:local and rake release. Because of the private nature of these gems I can't release them to RubyGems (and we haven't looked into hosting our rubygems).
My machines are using RVM to manage ruby versions and Bundler version 1.15.1
What I want to do: Assuming a new machine/developer trying out the project, ideally we would cd into each of the subfolders (currently 2, gem A and gem B), run rake install and after that we should have the gems available system wide for the current user.
What is happening: The gems are built and work properly, but they are only available inside the subfolder of each gem i.e. gem A is only available inside the subfolder A and gem B is only available inside subfolder B.
What I've tried: So, after rake build/install/install:local a new .gem file is generated under pkg. I've tried to manually install the "compiled" file using gem install pkg/A.gem, gem install --local pkg/A.gem and gem install --local --user-install pkg/A.gem without success. (there are plenty of SO questions/answers about this)
I believe this has something to do with the PATH variables, but like I said before I don't fully understand the way they are managed. I get the following results from these commands:
# Our gem
> gem which A
/home/ubuntu/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.4.0/gems/A-0.1.8/lib/A.rb
# Pry, available globally
> gem which pry
/home/ubuntu/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.4.0/gems/pry-0.11.1/lib/pry.rb
I've been lost and frustrated for far too long now, any help is appreciated. Also open to hear suggestions of better private gem installation flows :)
Yes, it has something to do with your PATH variables. Your installation seems to be good.
I advise you to first affirm your gems installation path with:
echo $GEM_HOME
The double check your PATH to ensure its present and also confirm that the GEM home is also where the gem got installed into from the rake install
echo $PATH
If not, put it in your path and you should be fine with something like this:
echo PATH=$PATH:$GEM_HOME >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc
Build your gem as per that guide you linked. You should end up with a gem file. Distribute this as you see fit (I use rsync/crontab to download newer gem versions but anything goes). User can install the gem as follows:
gem install --user-install /path/to/your/file.gem
This will install the gem in the user's ~/.gem/ruby/<version>/gems/<your-gem-name> directory.
Tried it with an empty gem (foodie, as in that example guide) and it works fine. But if you don't specify the --user-install parameter it will try to install in the system ruby dir (/usr/lib/ruby/gems...)

Is there a preferred tool to edit Gemfiles?

I have a project that depends on Ruby to do something. I need to tell these people to install bundler, create a Gemfile (or update an existing one) and then run bundler install.
To be very clear, these people do not care about Ruby, they don't know what Ruby is and they don't need to know what Ruby is.
Currently my documentation is:
Run this command in terminal:
gem install bundler
Create a new file name Gemfile and add these contents:
source 'https://rubygems.org'
gem 'lightning_sites'
Or if there is already a Gemfile then edit that file and add the line gem 'lightning_sites' at the bottom.
Go back to the terminal and run:
bundle install --path vendor/bundle
I would like to replace the documentation for step 2 and preferable replace it with a command line. Is there a tool that ships by default with Ruby or bundler that accomplishes this?
If you want to avoid bundler you need to force-bundle all your dependencies inside your application. This is only really practical if none of your dependencies have compiled extensions, so if they're all pure Ruby you'll be able to do it.
What you end up doing is a bundle install --path gems/ for example, then package up everything including that directory as a deployable application. You may want to make a script that performs this step and creates a .zip file of the final result for distribution purposes.
This is a heavy-handed approach, so it's best to do this only if absolutely necessary.
You don't have to use Bundler to install gems, Ruby provides the gem command for installing gems individually.
You could simply run: gem install lightning_sites --install-dir lightning_sites and in whatever Ruby script is using the gem, programatically modify your GEM_PATH using Gem.paths before the require statement to include that install directory.

Install ruby and use bundler with capistrano

Meaning, with capistrano I want to install ruby (and rvm), some gems by means of bundler, and perform some tasks using them. Is this even possible? When I try to install gems with rvm1-capistrano3 gem, it fails with this:
Installing light_resizer (0.2.0)
ERROR: While executing gem ... (TypeError)
no implicit conversion of nil into String
If I make use of capistrano-bundler alongside above mentioned gem, setting bundle_bins to [] (to be able to install bundler), I can't run tasks like deploy:assets:precompile later on.
What I did is use capistrano-bundler after all, but set :bundle_bins, [:rake], as rake is all I needed. Not a perfect solution, probably, but when was it the last time it was perfect... :)

How to use Bundler with path specified Ruby version

I am on a VM (Lucid 64b) with a system Ruby version of 1.9.3p0.
I have a Ruby script that creates a .deb file -- The script needs to use Ruby 1.8.7 which I have installed in /foo/ruby/1.8.7.
There is an existing Gemfile to be used with Bundler
I can't use RVM and I can't install gems at the system level.
My .bashrc includes (and has been sourced)
export PATH=$PATH:/foo/ruby/1.8.7/bin
but ruby -v still gives me
ruby 1.9.3p0 (2011-10-30) [x86_64-linux]
Questions
How can I change the Ruby version for my user to use Ruby 1.8.7?
I've run: bundle install --path vendor/bundle
So in that directory (actually ./vendor/bundle/ruby/1.8/cache/gems) are all the gems I need but, when I run the Ruby script it doesn't find the required gems. I run the script like so /foo/ruby/1.8.7 script_to_gen_deb_file.rb
How can I get ruby to see/use the bundled gems?
Update
I was able to solve it. I needed to use
/foo/ruby1.8.7/bundle exec /foo/ruby1.8.7/ruby script_to_gen_deb_file.rb
I had tried this before, but I got an unrelated error and believed there was an environment problem.
Change your path so the special ruby gets precedence?
export PATH=/foo/ruby/1.8.7/bin:$PATH

Ruby: How to include/install .bundle?

I'm new to Ruby. I have a .bundle file. I put it in the source folder and did
require('my.bundle')
But when I call the methods in the bundle, the definition is not found. Do I have to install them or include them in some other way to access them?
I am on Ruby version 1.8.7 (latest version on Mac).
I highly recommend using RVM to manage your Ruby installation, including your gems, so if you don't already have that, get it and follow the instructions for installing it. Make sure you do the part about modifying your bash startup script or you'll see weird behavior, like the wrong Ruby being called. Also, use the steps in "RVM and RubyGems" to install your gems or you can run into weird behavior with gems being installed under the wrong or an unexpected Ruby.
Second, use the gem command to install gems:
gem install gem_to_install
replacing "gem_to_install" with the name of the gem you want, and it will be installed into the appropriate gem folder for your Ruby.
If you are on Ruby 1.92, and trying to require a gem to use as a module in your code, use:
require 'gemname'
if it is installed via the gem command. And, if it is a module you wrote or have in your program's directory or below it, use:
require_relative 'path/to/gem/gemname'
If you are on a Ruby < 1.9 you'll also need to add require 'rubygems' above your other require lines, then use require './path/to/gem/gemname'.
Thanks, but my .bundle is not in gems. How do I install/require a .bundle file I already have?
If you wrote it look into rubygems/gemcutter or bundler for info on bundling and managing gems.
You can install a gem without using the app by going into the directory containing the gem and running setup.rb. See http://i.loveruby.net/en/projects/setup/doc/usage.html for a decent writeup or the official docs at: http://docs.rubygems.org/read/chapter/3

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