RubyGems and dependencies

[Francis Hwang]

Two RubyGems questions about dependencies:

1. If I use RubyGems to document a dependency to another gem then am I
correct in thinking it's not enough to simply have had that library
installed -- I explicitly need that gem, right? I mean, Lafcadio
depends on REXML and when I try to install the Lafcadio gem it tells
me it can't find the REXML gem. REXML is already installed (I'm using
Ruby 1.8 so it's part of the std library) but I'll need to install the
REXML gem so that my Lafcadio gem will work, right?

2. Related to that: Any ideas as to where in the future you see some
sort of auto-dependency install mgmt happening?

Francis

 

[Richard Kilmer]

1. If I use RubyGems to document a dependency to another gem then am I
correct in thinking it's not enough to simply have had that library
installed -- I explicitly need that gem, right? I mean, Lafcadio
depends on REXML and when I try to install the Lafcadio gem it tells
me it can't find the REXML gem. REXML is already installed (I'm using
Ruby 1.8 so it's part of the std library) but I'll need to install the
REXML gem so that my Lafcadio gem will work, right?

Gems dependency checking is only for other Gems. If you have libraries
installed in the std lib or the site_ruby directory, you do not specify
a dependency on them (and Gems does not manage them). Since REXML is
part of the std lib, and since that is the only thing you depend on, you
don't specify any Gems dependency.

-rich

 

[Carl Youngblood]

Two RubyGems questions about dependencies:

1. If I use RubyGems to document a dependency to another gem then am I
correct in thinking it's not enough to simply have had that library
installed -- I explicitly need that gem, right? I mean, Lafcadio
depends on REXML and when I try to install the Lafcadio gem it tells
me it can't find the REXML gem. REXML is already installed (I'm using
Ruby 1.8 so it's part of the std library) but I'll need to install the
REXML gem so that my Lafcadio gem will work, right?

2. Related to that: Any ideas as to where in the future you see some
sort of auto-dependency install mgmt happening?

Francis

Another cool feature would be to bundle all the necessary tools to
compile new RubyGems into the Windows installer version. That way
windows users who didn't know how to set these things up could get up
and running quickly with Ruby. I think this would do a lot to promote
Ruby use.

Carl