From: Joel VanderWerf <vjoel@...>
Date: 2005-07-12T09:16:06+09:00
Subject: Re: installation of files

Michael Gebhart wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I have written a program, which has several files. Now my question is,
> where to install all these files. 
> 
> Normally all files are installed in e.g.
> /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/site_ruby/programname/. But when the files are installed
> in site_ruby, they are accessable by every other program. This is not
> needed, because these files are no libraries. My program simply is split
> in several files. Shouldn�t program files be installed in /usr/bin? Or
> maybe installing the files to: /usr/local/programname? 
> 
> Programs written in C are linked to one binary and installed to /usr/bin.
> This isn�t possible with ruby. I�ve heard, that there are tools for
> making one ruby file, out of several ruby files. (rake) 

Have you considered Erik Veenstra's tar2rubyscript and rubyscript2exe,
at http://www.erikveen.dds.nl/ruby.html ?

> But this isn�t what I am looking for. 
> 
> What is the official target for such files, which are not libraries and
> shouldn�t be accessed by any other program? 

Why not just begin your main .rb file with

$LOAD_PATH.unshift Dir.pwd

and then you can let users put the dir wherever they want?