Gems should *not be case sensitive.. or should they?

ruby-talk
1

why are gem names case sensitive?

ie, gem rubyinline != gem RubyInline ??

if it's an os/arch limitation, then i'd suggest they'd be all downcased :slight_smile:

eg,

$ gem list --remote | grep -i rubyinline
rogerdpack-RubyInline (3.8.2.1 ruby)
RubyInline (3.8.6)
RubyInlineAcceleration (0.0.1)
scottmotte-RubyInline (3.8.1 ruby)

botp@bg-mis-u10:~
$ sudo gem install rubyinline
[sudo] password for botp:
ERROR: Could not find a valid gem 'rubyinline' (>= 0) in any repository
botp@bg-mis-u10:~
$ sudo gem install rubyinline
ERROR: Could not find a valid gem 'rubyinline' (>= 0) in any repository
botp@bg-mis-u10:~
$ sudo gem install rubyinline
ERROR: Could not find a valid gem 'rubyinline' (>= 0) in any repository
botp@bg-mis-u10:~
$ sudo gem install RubyInline
Successfully installed ZenTest-4.4.0
Successfully installed RubyInline-3.8.6
2 gems installed
Installing ri documentation for ZenTest-4.4.0...
Installing ri documentation for RubyInline-3.8.6...
Installing RDoc documentation for ZenTest-4.4.0...
Installing RDoc documentation for RubyInline-3.8.6...
botp@bg-mis-u10:~

best regards -botp

2

Interesting. I does make sense to me that search/list finds either
case and that install requires an exact match. I like the simplicity
of the idea, but if it's possible to publish 2 gems with same name
using different casings, this won't work. I think.

Regards,
Ammar

路路路

On Mon, Oct 4, 2010 at 7:49 AM, botp <botpena@gmail.com> wrote:

why are gem names case sensitive?

ie, gem rubyinline != gem RubyInline ??

if it's an os/arch limitation, then i'd suggest they'd be all downcased :slight_smile:

3

+1

路路路

On Oct 4, 12:49 am, botp <botp...@gmail.com> wrote:

why are gem names case sensitive?

ie, gem rubyinline != gem RubyInline ??

if it's an os/arch limitation, then i'd suggest they'd be all downcased :slight_smile:

4

Probably for the same reason that just about every programming language,
package manager, and Unix commandline is case sensitive, not to mention most
filesystems.

For what it's worth, I do release my gems downcased, but I don't really see a
reason they shouldn't be case sensitive.

路路路

On Sunday, October 03, 2010 11:49:51 pm botp wrote:

why are gem names case sensitive?

5

yes, unfortunately,...

g=`gem list --remote`.each_line.map{|x| x.split.first};
gd=g.map(&:downcase);
gd.get_duplicates.size
#=> 121
gd.get_duplicates
#=> ["abundance", "actionpool", "actiontimer", "activesambaldap",
"adkron-data_bank", "alltom-glapp", "ambethia-smtp-tls",
"andre-geokit", "apptower-ubistrano", "arbarlow-rubycurl",
"assaf-uuid", "autonzb", "babelfish", "baccigalupi-aqua", "bangkok",
"bcaccinolo-mailchimp_api", "bluecloth", "bougyman-freeswitcher",
"box2d", "bterlson-reddit", "buildr", "cedric-shorty", "commandline",
"console", "creationix-milk", "crudtree", "cyrillizer",
"dcrec1-rhyme", "dnsruby", "dtaus", "dtr", "elliottcable-jello",
"elliottcable-nfoiled", "elliottcable-refinery",
"elliottcable-stringray", "entangledstate-isbn", "etch", "fakeweb",
"farsifu", "fivepointssolutions-serve", "flashatron", "freeswitcher",
"funit", "gdata", "gooby", "hebruby", "informer", "io-reactor",
"jalalidate", "jamierumbelow-gistify", "jarrett-quarto", "jazzez",
"jbe-termite", "jgre-monkeyspecdoc", "jruby-openssl", "kanocc",
"laowaihua", "linguistics", "listrophy-suprails", "luikore-bk201",
"luikore-cici", "maca-scruby", "markaby", "martin",
"matthewrudy-aspicious", "matthewrudy-rudeq", "mdaines-feasible",
"memoize", "meskyanichi-timer", "mp4info", "nabaztag", "nephila",
"nilsimsa", "njacobeus-tokboxer", "oasis", "onion", "onlooker",
"opal", "pablo", "parseargs", "piggy", "polar", "popen4",
"pvande-differ", "rack", "radar-lookup", "rafaelgaspar-sexyprotocol",
"redgreen", "reposh", "roadrunner", "rogerleite-gedit-snippets-tool",
"ron", "roxml", "rsruby", "rtask", "ruby-hl7", "rvm", "sac",
"selenium-client", "soleone-highrise", "spy-vs-spy", "sqs", "stencil",
"stompmq", "sysvipc", "text", "tommi-cmd_tweet", "tracker", "usage",
"valuable", "vimmate", "visionmedia-growl", "visionmedia-san",
"watersofoblivion-burn", "watersofoblivion-footpedal",
"willbailey-flareshow", "writeexcel", "x12", "xmlcanonicalizer",
"xray", "zliby"]
g.grep /actiontime/i
#=> ["actiontimer", "ActionTimer"]
g.grep /actionpool/i
#=> ["ActionPool", "actionpool"]
g.grep /^popen4/i
#=> ["popen4", "POpen4"]

and some weirdos..

g.grep /^-/i
#=> ["-"]
g.grep /^1234/i
#=> ["1234567890_"]

...

best regards -botp

路路路

On Mon, Oct 4, 2010 at 9:13 PM, Ammar Ali <ammarabuali@gmail.com> wrote:

but if it's possible to publish 2 gems with same name using different casings..

6

Yeah... and I've screwed that up in the past when I released "zentest" (pre hoe, so that won't happen again). I had to get the gem removed and forcibly removed from the gem index.

路路路

On Oct 4, 2010, at 06:13 , Ammar Ali wrote:

On Mon, Oct 4, 2010 at 7:49 AM, botp <botpena@gmail.com> wrote:

why are gem names case sensitive?

ie, gem rubyinline != gem RubyInline ??

if it's an os/arch limitation, then i'd suggest they'd be all downcased :slight_smile:

Interesting. I does make sense to me that search/list finds either
case and that install requires an exact match. I like the simplicity
of the idea, but if it's possible to publish 2 gems with same name
using different casings, this won't work. I think.

7

Some project management systems ask you for a "unix name", which must be /^[-a-z]+$/ or something like that. The display name, by contrast, can have caps, spaces, etc. IIRC sourceforge an example.

路路路

On 10/04/2010 03:12 PM, David Masover wrote:

On Sunday, October 03, 2010 11:49:51 pm botp wrote:

why are gem names case sensitive?

Probably for the same reason that just about every programming language,
package manager, and Unix commandline is case sensitive, not to mention most
filesystems.