From: Intransition <transfire@...>
Date: 2011-06-12T21:23:18+09:00
Subject: Re: RFC - One word alias for require_relative



On Jun 12, 5:59 am, Josh Cheek <josh.ch...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Back in the blissful days before I understood the `$LOAD_PATH` or the
> difference between `Dir.pwd` and `File.dirname(__FILE__)`, I could `require
> "file"` and it would work (unless I was in another dir). `require_relative`
> isn't universally implemented, and doesn't seem to play well with others.
> It's just generally been unavailable / not worked right for me to the point
> that I prefer to use `File.dirname(__FILE__) + "/file"`
>
> What if, instead of having CWD in the load path, we had
> `File.dirname(__FILE__)`? Essentially, CWD of the file that the require
> statement is originated through. In the same way that every file has its own
> `__FILE__` variable, what if the `$LOAD_PATH` included the current file's
> dir, for any given file? Then the old interface would work again, it would
> be simpler to think about, security risks of CWD in the load path would be
> addressed, and most importantly, I could write beautiful code again (I die a
> little bit inside each time I write __FILE__).
>
> Of course, I have no idea if it's even possible, and it's not immediately
> clear to me how it would affect gems. Still, thought I'd put it out there.

Hi Josh, your idea is essentially the basis to what I was suggesting
in my earlier comments. By adding the current files path to $LOAD_PATH
you make #require and #relative_require one and the same. But that can
cause problems if you have name conflicts between a local file and a
file in another library. Consider the example I gave. If you wanted to
create an extension for OpenStruct, and created a file called
`ostruct.rb` in your project, how would you load Ruby's 'ostruct.rb'
file?