From: Bob Gustafson <bobgus@...>
Date: 2001-09-18T09:33:23+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:21296] nested require files need path internally

Version: 1.64
OS: Linux 2.4.0-test6 #1 Thu Aug 10 16:18:50 CDT 2000 i686


I had a piece of a program involving date manipulation. This piece started with
the line

    require "date"

    (This referenced file /usr/local/lib/ruby/1.6/date.rb )

I needed this piece of program in another program, so I broke it off and put it
into a local file named:

    date.rb

I then added the line

    require "date.rb"

in the file which had previously contained this piece, and in the program I was
developing.

-- What happened (I think) --

My file "date.rb" was read during the processing of the require "date.rb"
statement in my main program. When the line (in date.rb)

    require "date"

was read, the ruby compilation jumped to file /usr/local/lib/ruby/1.6/date.rb
and continued reading. When the compilation reached the end of this file, the
compilation processing jumped BACK TO THE MAIN PROGRAM, completely ignoring the
rest of my "date.rb" file.

Or, what might have happened:

The line in my main program

    require "date.rb"

caused the compilation process to go directly to the file:

    /usr/local/lib/ruby/1.6/date.rb

IGNORING any files of the name "date.rb" in the local directory

--- What I did to fix --

I just renamed my "date.rb" file to "mydate.rb" and changed the line in my old
main program and my new development program to

    require "mydate.rb"

This whole process cost me about an hour of time to figure out what was
happening (There were no error messages until I tried to use something that was
in my date.rb file beyond the

    require "date"

line).

-- Perhaps the 'require' file processing should first look for a file in the
local directory with the exact name given, then if a file is not found, go to
the system directory to look for a file with the same basename and .rb
extension?