From: Brian Marick <marick@...>
Date: 2002-08-27T05:58:04+09:00
Subject: Bug report: $irbrc does not affect IRB

In both the IRB from Ruby 1.6.4 and irb-0.9-02.07.03.tgz from RAA, 
there appears to be a bug in the handling of $irbrc: it's ignored.

I think the problem is in init.rb, here:

def IRB.run_config
     if @CONF[:RC]
       rcs = []
       rcs.push File.expand_path("~/.irbrc") if ENV.key?("HOME")
       rcs.push ".irbrc"
       rcs.push "irb.rc"
       rcs.push "_irbrc"
       rcs.push "$irbrc"        ### Here
       # now try each file.

Note the quotes around "$irbrc". I suggest the last line read like this:

       rcs.push $irbrc if $irbrc

That works when I try it.

----
I'm tempted to suggest that $irbrc come first in the list of init 
files to try, rather than last. I'm tweaking IRB to be a command-line 
interface to an application. I have to delete HOME from ENV to avoid 
having ~/.irbrc loaded instead of the application-specific init file 
$irbrc names.

Since I may be the first person ever to use $irbrc, it seems unlikely 
the change would break someone else's code. However, it would make a 
lie of the sentence in _Programming Ruby_ that describes the load 
order.

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--
Brian Marick, marick@testing.com
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