From: Jim Weirich <jim@...>
Date: 2005-03-08T21:20:46+09:00
Subject: Re: Must .gemrc -> gemhome point to Gems installation?

On Tuesday 08 March 2005 01:09 am, ES wrote:
> On my system, anything in the gemhome field in .gemrc seems to render
> Gems unusable. 

The reason it is failing is that gems requires a "sources" gem be available to 
tell it where to the sites to use to get remote gems.  You can work around 
this by putting the standard gem repository in the gem path, while leaving 
the new gemhome be the target for new installations.

Here's what worked for me on my linux system.  

First, with an unmodified .gemrc file,  find the directory of the current gem 
home:

  $ gem env gemdir
  /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8

Now edit .gemrc to contain ...

  gem: --gen-rdoc --run-tests
  rdoc: --all --line-numbers --inline-source
  gemhome: /home/ruerue/lib/ruby
  gempath:
    - /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8

Now the .gemrc file will direct all new installations to 
the /home/ruerue/lib/ruby directory.

It would be nice to have a way of initializing a new gem home directory with 
the sources package.  Then you wouldn't need to have the original gem 
directory in the gem path.  I suppose you could do it by hand, but I haven't 
tried it.

-- 
-- 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)