Use Kernel#gem to activate a specific version of gem_name.
version_requirements is a list of version requirements that the specified gem must match, most commonly “= example.version.number“. See Gem::Requirement for how to specify a version requirement.
If you will be activating the latest version of a gem, there is no need to call Kernel#gem, Kernel#require will do the right thing for you.
Kernel#gem returns true if the gem was activated, otherwise false. If the gem could not be found, didn’t match the version requirements, or a different version was already activated, an exception will be raised.
Kernel#gem should be called before any require statements (otherwise RubyGems may load a conflicting library version).
In older RubyGems versions, the environment variable GEM_SKIP could be used to skip activation of specified gems, for example to test out changes that haven’t been installed yet. Now RubyGems defers to -I and the RUBYLIB environment variable to skip activation of a gem.
Example:
GEM_SKIP=libA:libB ruby -I../libA -I../libB ./mycode.rb
# File lib/rubygems.rb, line 1062 1062: def gem(gem_name, *version_requirements) # :doc: 1063: skip_list = (ENV['GEM_SKIP'] || "").split(/:/) 1064: raise Gem::LoadError, "skipping #{gem_name}" if skip_list.include? gem_name 1065: Gem.activate(gem_name, *version_requirements) 1066: end
The Kernel#require from before RubyGems was loaded.
When RubyGems is required, Kernel#require is replaced with our own which is capable of loading gems on demand.
When you call require 'x', this is what happens:
If the file can be loaded from the existing Ruby loadpath, it is.
Otherwise, installed gems are searched for a file that matches. If it’s found in gem ‘y’, that gem is activated (added to the loadpath).
The normal require functionality of returning false if that file has already been loaded is preserved.
# File lib/rubygems/custom_require.rb, line 28 28: def require(path) # :doc: 29: gem_original_require path 30: rescue LoadError => load_error 31: if load_error.message.end_with?(path) 32: if Gem.try_activate(path) 33: return gem_original_require(path) 34: end 35: end 36: 37: raise load_error 38: end
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