From: Jim Weirich <jim@...>
Date: 2004-12-09T03:57:17+09:00
Subject: Re: [ANN] RubyScript2Exe 0.2.0


itsme213 said:
> I am trying to settle on one standard way to use my gems transparently
> i.e.
> without something like 'require_gem' (or was that 'gem_require'?). While
> GEM_PATH seems to work, it appears to cause problems with other apps or
> libs that assume Rubys standard directory layout.
>
> Advice?

If you don't care what version you get, just do a normal require.  In
addition, you need to make sure the rubygems library is loaded.  You can
do this by:

* explicitly requiring 'rubygems' before requiring any file
  that would be in a gem.[1]
* explicitly starting ruby with a -rubygems command line option.
* Setting the RUBYOPT environment variable to 'rubygems'

If you /do/ care about which the version of a gem you are using, then use
a require_gem command with explicit versioning requirements.  Again, make
sure the rubygems library is loaded using one of the above three
techniques.

Regarding your GEM_PATH comment, I'm not sure what you are getting at. 
GEM_PATH is for specifying where multiple gem repositories are locally
stored.  Were you refering to RUBYOPT?

-- 
-- Jim Weirich     jim@weirichhouse.org    http://onestepback.org
-----------------------------------------------------------------
"Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct,
not tried it." -- Donald Knuth (in a memo to Peter van Emde Boas)

[1] If you do choose to explicitly include rubygems, but don't
    want to depend on rubygems always being available, do this:

      begin
        require 'rubygems'
      rescue LoadError
      end