How to reload available rubygems in a long running process

Ruby
1

In my Ruby monitoring framework, god, I have the ability to load
configuration files into an already running god instance. This allows
the user to create new watches without having to restart god. There is a
problem, however, if the config file to be loaded requires a gem that
was installed after god was started. The rubygems system discovers and
caches the available gems when it is initially required, ignoring any
gems that are installed after that.

I have not been able to find an easy way to have rubygems reload its
cache of available gems from a running Ruby program. Does anyone know of
a decent way to accomplish this?

–
Tom Preston-Werner

2

On Nov 12, 2007, at 10:48 , Tom W. wrote:

anyone know of a decent way to accomplish this?
Gem.clear_paths

3

On 11/13/07, Eric H. [email protected] wrote:

I have not been able to find an easy way to have rubygems reload
its cache of available gems from a running Ruby program. Does
anyone know of a decent way to accomplish this?

Gem.clear_paths

This does not appear to work. Here is my test procedure:

→ cheat gem is NOT installed

require ‘rubygems’

begin
require ‘cheat’
rescue LoadError

→ so this gets executed

puts ‘fail’
end

gets

→ program pauses and I install cheat gem

sudo gem install cheat

Gem.clear_paths

begin
require ‘cheat’
rescue LoadError

→ require STILL fails even though Gem:all_load_paths

now contains the cheat gem’s directory

puts ‘fail’
end

–
Tom Preston-Werner

4

On Nov 13, 2007, at 23:39 , Tom W. wrote:

[…]
Hrm, with RubyGems 0.9.4.7 I ran your script and I get one fail, not
two.

5

On 11/13/07, Eric H. [email protected] wrote:

This does not appear to work. Here is my test procedure:

[…]

Hrm, with RubyGems 0.9.4.7 I ran your script and I get one fail, not
two.

Interesting. I’ve verified that it does indeed work with 0.9.4.7. I was
previously using 0.9.4. Thanks for your help!

–
Tom Preston-Werner

6

On Nov 14, 2007, at 24:04 , Tom W. wrote:

On 11/13/07, Eric H. [email protected] wrote:

Hrm, with RubyGems 0.9.4.7 I ran your script and I get one fail, not
two.

Interesting. I’ve verified that it does indeed work with 0.9.4.7. I
was
previously using 0.9.4. Thanks for your help!

I think that 0.9.4 was resetting the wrong variable, but that’s a dim
memory. The beta should become 0.9.5 next week.