gem-sane-binary

SYNOPSIS

Right now RubyGems rewrites the shebang for the binaries (executables) it generates in a gem using the current Ruby executable name, which inadvertently causes the binary to be tied to the specific Ruby version. This means you need to reinstall a gem everytime you switch Ruby interpreters to regenerate the binaries.

This gem adds a RubyGems plugin to change the shebang behaviour to use a ruby symlink if one is available in the same directory as the Ruby interpreter being used. This allows you to symlink ruby to whichever current Ruby interpreter is being used, making it easier for 1.8/1.9 to co-exist on a system.

INSTALL

$ gem install gem-sane-binary

USING

To use the gem, you just need to have a ruby symlink pointing to your correct Ruby interpreter in the same directory as the interpreter that gem uses when installing your gems.

SETTING UP RUBY 1.8 AND RUBY 1.9

If you don't already have two Ruby installs, you should probably read bellow to get setup, otherwise this gem won't be very helpful to you.

This gem works best for Ruby 1.8/1.9 compatibility. If you want to install Ruby 1.8 and Ruby 1.9 side by side, recompile Ruby 1.9 with:

ruby-1.9.1...$ ./configure --program-suffix=19

You'll then want to rename any ruby 1.8 binaries to use their suffix names as well (I'm assuming you already have 1.8 installed. If not, install 1.8 with a suffix as well and skip this step):

$ sudo mv /usr/local/bin/ruby /usr/local/bin/ruby18
$ sudo mv /usr/local/bin/irb /usr/local/bin/irb18
$ sudo mv /usr/local/bin/gem /usr/local/bin/gem18

Then create your ruby/irb/gem symlinks to point to whichever Ruby install you're using:

$ ln -fs /usr/local/bin/ruby19 /usr/local/bin/ruby
$ ...

I use the following aliases in my ~/.profile to switch between Ruby installs:

alias ruby-switch-18='sudo ln -fs /usr/local/bin/ruby18 /usr/local/bin/ruby &&
  sudo ln -fs /usr/local/bin/irb18 /usr/local/bin/irb &&
  sudo ln -fs /usr/local/bin/gem18 /usr/local/bin/gem'
alias ruby-switch-19='sudo ln -fs /usr/local/bin/ruby19 /usr/local/bin/ruby &&
  sudo ln -fs /usr/local/bin/irb19 /usr/local/bin/irb &&
  sudo ln -fs /usr/local/bin/gem19 /usr/local/bin/gem'

Then I get:

  ~$ ruby-switch-18 && ruby --version 
  ruby 1.8.7 (2009-01-28 patchlevel 99) [i686-darwin9.6.0]
  ~$ ruby-switch-19 && ruby --version
  ruby 1.9.1p0 (2009-01-30 revision 21907) [i386-darwin9.6.0]