From: Jams <jam@...>
Date: 2012-06-13T22:20:34+09:00
Subject: Re: require_relative? why didn't we "relative do"


On Jun 12, 2012, at 9:34 PM 6/12/12, Intransition wrote:

> I wonder if it would been better if we had gone another route with the whole `#require_relative` thing. Instead of a special require method, we could have a method that adds the current file's directory to the top of the $LOAD_PATH temporarily while a block executes.
> 
> For example, lets say we have a library `fruit_basket' with:
> 
>     lib/
>       fruit_basket.rb
>       fruit_basket/
>         grape.rb
>         orange.rb
> 
> Then in `fruit_basket.rb`:
> 
>     relative do
>       require 'grape'
>       require 'orange'
>     end
> 
> Assuming `#relative` to be the name of such a method.
> 
> This is actually quite easy to implement in pure Ruby and would not have required a C-based patch to Ruby core.
> 
> 
Hey Intransition.

you might have better luck emailing ruby-core if you're interested in this an can't work it out.

Have you looked through the ruby-lang archives? The first hit I found for require_relative was this: http://www.ruby-forum.com/topic/148978 which seems to indicate there wasn't much discussion about the functionality. What's cool is that it also shows that require_relative was originally ruby code, not C. 

Assuming that it was rewritten in C (I haven't checked), I imagine it was to ensure performance. 1.9 had a lot of performance improvements over 1.8.

Jams