From: Austin Ziegler <halostatue@...>
Date: 2006-06-16T02:53:08+09:00
Subject: Re: running applications installed from gems

On 6/15/06, John Gabriele <jmg3000@gmail.com> wrote:
> > [snip]
> >
> > % gem install pdf-writer
> > % techbook
> >
> > [snip]
> What Austin is implying is that after you run the gem command (usually
> as root, from any directory), the, say, techbook executable will then
> be in your bin directory (for me it's /opt/ruby-1.8.4/bin). As long as
> that bin directory is in a user's $PATH, that user can then run the
> techbook program from any directory just by typing "techbook" at the
> prompt.
>
> It's interesting to note that there's two versions of a "techbook"
> file on my system:
>
> $ ls -l /opt/ruby-1.8.4/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/pdf-writer-1.1.3/bin/techbook
> /opt/ruby-1.8.4/bin/techbook
> -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 419 2006-06-15 12:39 /opt/ruby-1.8.4/bin/techbook
> -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 594 2006-06-15 12:39
> /opt/ruby-1.8.4/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/pdf-writer-1.1.3/bin/techbook
>
> I don't know enough about gems to say:
> * what the /opt/ruby-1.8.4/bin/techbook executable was generated from, or
> * what the gems/pdf-writer-1.1.3/bin/techbook file is for.

The one in /opt/ruby-1.8.4/bin is the RubyGems stub. That's in your
$PATH, because that's where your ruby executable is. The one in
...gems/pdf-writer-1.1.3/bin/techbook is my actual executable. The
RubyGems stub will activate the PDF::Writer 1.1.3 gem (actually, the
latest unless you select a specific version) and then "run" the one in
the gems/... path, which is *not* in your $PATH.

-austin
-- 
Austin Ziegler * halostatue@gmail.com * http://www.halostatue.ca/
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               * austin@zieglers.ca