Rails 2.3.2 cannot find installed gems.

rubyonrails-talk
1

I have a rails 2.3.2 application that uses crypt, RedCloth, mysql and openrain-action_mailer_tls. As long as the gems are installed in the @@frameworks_gems list things work. But when gems are not loaded in @@frameworks_gems, the app fails left and right with "no such file" errors on my gems.

I have traced into the search in gem_path_searcher.rb:78 and it appears that the comparison

    Dir[glob].select { |f| File.file? f.untaint }

will never find the required gem if the gem doesn't have a specified suffix.

eg:

When looking for the crypt gem (crypt-1.1.4)

glob = '/home/esmith/.gem/ruby/1.8/gems/crypt-1.1.4/{.}/crypt {,.rb,.rbw,.so,.bundle,.dll,.sl,.jar}'

so Dir[glob].select { |f| ...}

generates

f = '/home/esmith/.gem/ruby/1.8/gems/crypt-1.1.4/./crypt'

Passing this (untainted) to File.file? fails because "crypt" is not a regular file.

This happens with all of the gems that are not in the @@framework_gems list.

This behavior doesn't change if they are loaded into vendor/gems. The only way I can get the gems to load is to have them in the central gem repository which I cannot access on my hosting service.

Am I missing something with this? Rails certainly appears to be.

2

Polydectes, if you cannot access the central gem repository, then you’ll

need to unpack the gems into vendor. Thus, you’ll have to use one of

the following:

rake gems:unpack # unpacks the gem into vendor/gems

rake gems:unpack:dependencies # unpacks the gems with their dependencies into vendor/gems

Also, their might be some gems that have native extensions after you perform the above. Thus, you

should perform the following within the root directory of your rails application:

rake gems:build

Last but not least, here’s a great screen cast that talks about gems and their dependencies:

http://media.railscasts.com/videos/110_gem_dependencies.mov

Good luck,

-Conrad

3

Conrad,

Thanks for the response.

Unfortunately, I've already unpacked the gems into the vendor/gems folder. That didn't work for some reason.

( "This behavior doesn't change if they are loaded into vendor/gems. The only way I can get the gems to load is to have them in the central gem repository which I cannot access on my hosting service. ")

I have been able to get the application running under Mongrel; however, I need to deploy on a server where they kill mongrel processes after 2 minutes by policy. So I need to use fcgi through rack to access the system.

When I test the access using dispatch.fcgi, I get a stack trace for each gem that cannot be found. Each of the gems that cannot be found is installed in my personal gem repository, and they have also been unpacked into my applications vendor/gems folder.

I never had problems like this with 2.1.2 or 2.2.2, but for some reason 2.3.2 just isn't seeing my gems.

Eric.

4

Conrad,

Thanks for the response.

Unfortunately, I’ve already unpacked the gems into the vendor/gems

folder. That didn’t work for some reason.

( "This behavior doesn’t change if they are loaded into vendor/gems. The only way I can get the gems to load is to have them in the central

gem repository which I cannot access on my hosting service. ")

I have been able to get the application running under Mongrel;

however, I need to deploy on a server where they kill mongrel

processes after 2 minutes by policy. So I need to use fcgi through

rack to access the system.

When I test the access using dispatch.fcgi, I get a stack trace for

each gem that cannot be found. Each of the gems that cannot be found

is installed in my personal gem repository, and they have also been

unpacked into my applications vendor/gems folder.

I never had problems like this with 2.1.2 or 2.2.2, but for some

reason 2.3.2 just isn’t seeing my gems.

Eric.

I have a rails 2.3.2 application that uses crypt, RedCloth, mysql and

openrain-action_mailer_tls. As long as the gems are installed in the

@@frameworks_gems list things work. But when gems are not loaded in

@@frameworks_gems, the app fails left and right with “no such file”

errors on my gems.

I have traced into the search in gem_path_searcher.rb:78 and it

appears that the comparison

Dir[glob].select { |f| File.file? f.untaint }

will never find the required gem if the gem doesn’t have a specified

suffix.

eg:

When looking for the crypt gem (crypt-1.1.4)

glob = '/home/esmith/.gem/ruby/1.8/gems/crypt-1.1.4/{.}/crypt

{,.rb,.rbw,.so,.bundle,.dll,.sl,.jar}’

so Dir[glob].select { |f| …}

generates

f = ‘/home/esmith/.gem/ruby/1.8/gems/crypt-1.1.4/./crypt’

Passing this (untainted) to File.file? fails because “crypt” is not a

regular file.

This happens with all of the gems that are not in the @@framework_gems

list.

This behavior doesn’t change if they are loaded into vendor/gems. The

only way I can get the gems to load is to have them in the central gem

repository which I cannot access on my hosting service.

Am I missing something with this? Rails certainly appears to be.

Polydectes, if you cannot access the central gem repository, then you’ll

need to unpack the gems into vendor. Thus, you’ll have to use one of

the following:

rake gems:unpack # unpacks the gem into vendor/gems

rake gems:unpack:dependencies # unpacks the gems with their dependencies

into vendor/gems

Also, their might be some gems that have native extensions after you perform

the above. Thus, you

should perform the following within the root directory of your rails

application:

rake gems:build

Last but not least, here’s a great screen cast that talks about gems and

their dependencies:

http://media.railscasts.com/videos/110_gem_dependencies.mov

Good luck,

-Conrad

Eric, after you unpacked the gems, are you requiring the gem into the file(s)

that need it? For example,

require ‘rubygems’

require ‘RedCloth’

or

require ‘rubygems’

require ‘crypt’

Note: In Ruby 1.9.1, one doesn’t need the following line:

require ‘rubygems’

-Conrad

5

Conrad,

Thanks for the response.

Unfortunately, I’ve already unpacked the gems into the vendor/gems

folder. That didn’t work for some reason.

( "This behavior doesn’t change if they are loaded into vendor/gems. The only way I can get the gems to load is to have them in the central

gem repository which I cannot access on my hosting service. ")

I have been able to get the application running under Mongrel;

however, I need to deploy on a server where they kill mongrel

processes after 2 minutes by policy. So I need to use fcgi through

rack to access the system.

When I test the access using dispatch.fcgi, I get a stack trace for

each gem that cannot be found. Each of the gems that cannot be found

is installed in my personal gem repository, and they have also been

unpacked into my applications vendor/gems folder.

I never had problems like this with 2.1.2 or 2.2.2, but for some

reason 2.3.2 just isn’t seeing my gems.

Eric.

I have a rails 2.3.2 application that uses crypt, RedCloth, mysql and

openrain-action_mailer_tls. As long as the gems are installed in the

@@frameworks_gems list things work. But when gems are not loaded in

@@frameworks_gems, the app fails left and right with “no such file”

errors on my gems.

I have traced into the search in gem_path_searcher.rb:78 and it

appears that the comparison

Dir[glob].select { |f| File.file? f.untaint }

will never find the required gem if the gem doesn’t have a specified

suffix.

eg:

When looking for the crypt gem (crypt-1.1.4)

glob = '/home/esmith/.gem/ruby/1.8/gems/crypt-1.1.4/{.}/crypt

{,.rb,.rbw,.so,.bundle,.dll,.sl,.jar}’

so Dir[glob].select { |f| …}

generates

f = ‘/home/esmith/.gem/ruby/1.8/gems/crypt-1.1.4/./crypt’

Passing this (untainted) to File.file? fails because “crypt” is not a

regular file.

This happens with all of the gems that are not in the @@framework_gems

list.

This behavior doesn’t change if they are loaded into vendor/gems. The

only way I can get the gems to load is to have them in the central gem

repository which I cannot access on my hosting service.

Am I missing something with this? Rails certainly appears to be.

Polydectes, if you cannot access the central gem repository, then you’ll

need to unpack the gems into vendor. Thus, you’ll have to use one of

the following:

rake gems:unpack # unpacks the gem into vendor/gems

rake gems:unpack:dependencies # unpacks the gems with their dependencies

into vendor/gems

Also, their might be some gems that have native extensions after you perform

the above. Thus, you

should perform the following within the root directory of your rails

application:

rake gems:build

Last but not least, here’s a great screen cast that talks about gems and

their dependencies:

http://media.railscasts.com/videos/110_gem_dependencies.mov

Good luck,

-Conrad

Eric, after you unpacked the gems, are you requiring the gem into the file(s)

that need it? For example,

require ‘rubygems’

require ‘RedCloth’

The above should be ‘redcloth’.

6

Can you post a stack trace? It will be a lot easier to figure out what the problem is...

--Matt Jones

7

I believe I've found the source of the problem.

When using a gem in Rails starting with 2.2.2, if the library name isn't an exact match for the gem name, then Rails can no longer find the gem. Personally, I believe THIS IS A MAJOR PROBLEM WITH THE NEW GEMS LOADING SCHEME!!! But that's my personal opinion. It's as if the developers were taking a hint from Microsoft and taking away important capabilities of the system which millions of people rely on in an effort to make things "easier" for them. Bad Programmer! No Donut!!!

The solution is to configure the gems in config/environment.rb and include the library name. So for example, instead of just requiring redcloth in your class files and modules, you also need to add:

config.gem "redcloth", :lib => "RedCloth"

in your environment.rb

So the fix for my problem is to find the lib names for each of the gems that are not being loaded. As I've shown above, RedCloth is the name for redcloth and action_mailer_tls in my case is in the openrain- action_mailer_tls library.

Now I just need to find the library names for crypt, rspec, and mysql.

Eric

8

Yes, Brian Bates covers this in his screen cast on gem dependencies.

I really don’t think that it’s a major issue because anything that’s installed

from github has the following syntax:

<user_name>-<project_name>

Thus, you might find a single project that has been forked two or more

times and the current scheme solves that problem. However, it would

be great to install a gem from gems.github.com using just the project

name as is the case with gems.rubyforge.org.

Next, it would definitely be better if the gem and library name were

identical so one wouldn’t have to hunt within the gem repository from

the correct library name. I guess this is something that gem makers

will have to address. Last but not least, the correct way to add the

RedCloth gem to your application is as follows:

config.gem “RedCloth”, :lib => “redcloth”

Good luck,

-Conrad