Ruby and library paths

ruby-talk
1

Hi there

I'm (brand) new to Ruby, so treat my questions in that light. On trying to install Beast (web forum software on Rails) I am required to test that requiring fcgi, or fcgi.so returns true from within irb.

$ irb
irb(main):001:0> require fcgi.so
NameError: undefined local variable or method `fcgi' for main:Object
         from (irb):1

I guessed that there may be an issue with paths, so tried the full path to the lib.

irb(main):002:0> require /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/fcgi-0.8.7/lib/fcgi.so
SyntaxError: compile error
(irb):2: unknown regexp options - lb
(irb):2: no .<digit> floating literal anymore; put 0 before dot
require /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/fcgi-0.8.7/lib/fcgi.so
                                              ^
(irb):2: parse error, unexpected tINTEGER
require /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/fcgi-0.8.7/lib/fcgi.so
                                               ^
         from (irb):2

The above has worked before (ie. using the full path), giving the output 'true'.

I have two questions.

1) How do I configure things so that I don't have to specify the full path to a lib.
2) How do I resolve the above error? Should I be speaking to the ruby-fcgi guys?

OS slackware linux
ruby 1.8.5-p2
ruby fcgi 0.8.7
fcgi 2.4.0

Thanks
Dale

···

from :0

2

Dale schrieb:

I'm (brand) new to Ruby, so treat my questions in that light. On trying to install Beast (web forum software on Rails) I am required to test that requiring fcgi, or fcgi.so returns true from within irb.

$ irb
irb(main):001:0> require fcgi.so
NameError: undefined local variable or method `fcgi' for main:Object
        from (irb):1

Hi Dale, welcome to Ruby!

You have to put quotes around fcgi, like

   require "fcgi"

or

   require "fcgi.so"

Otherwise Ruby tries to find a local variable or a method called fcgi, and then you get the NameError you've shown.

Regards,
Pit

3

Thanks for the advice Pit, but there still appears to be a path issue? Any other suggestions? Thanks.

$ irb
irb(main):001:0> require "fcgi"
LoadError: no such file to load -- fcgi
         from (irb):1:in `require'
         from (irb):1
irb(main):002:0> require "fcgi.so"
LoadError: no such file to load -- fcgi.so
         from (irb):2:in `require'
         from (irb):2
irb(main):003:0>

Pit Capitain wrote:

···

You have to put quotes around fcgi, like

  require "fcgi"

or

  require "fcgi.so"

Otherwise Ruby tries to find a local variable or a method called fcgi, and then you get the NameError you've shown.

4

This does work though... absolute path to lib, so there must be a path issue in terms of irb's environment?

irb(main):003:0> require "/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/fcgi-0.8.7/lib/fcgi.so"
=> true

Dale wrote:

···

Thanks for the advice Pit, but there still appears to be a path issue? Any other suggestions? Thanks.

$ irb
irb(main):001:0> require "fcgi"
LoadError: no such file to load -- fcgi
        from (irb):1:in `require'
        from (irb):1
irb(main):002:0> require "fcgi.so"
LoadError: no such file to load -- fcgi.so
        from (irb):2:in `require'
        from (irb):2
irb(main):003:0>

5

Dale schrieb:

This does work though... absolute path to lib, so there must be a path issue in terms of irb's environment?

irb(main):003:0> require "/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/fcgi-0.8.7/lib/fcgi.so"
=> true

Hi Dale, I have no Linux, so I can't tell you much more. But to be able to use gems, you first have to load the ruygems library itself. So try

   require "rubygems"
   require "fcgi"

If this doesn't work, someone else has to help you further.

Regards,
Pit

6

Ha! Super! You were spot on. Thanks!

$ irb
irb(main):001:0> require "rubygems"
=> true
irb(main):002:0> require "fcgi"
=> true
irb(main):003:0>

Pit Capitain wrote:

···

Hi Dale, I have no Linux, so I can't tell you much more. But to be able to use gems, you first have to load the ruygems library itself. So try

  require "rubygems"
  require "fcgi"

7

Dale schrieb:

Ha! Super! You were spot on. Thanks!

$ irb
irb(main):001:0> require "rubygems"
=> true
irb(main):002:0> require "fcgi"
=> true
irb(main):003:0>

If you are going to work with rubygems more often, it is a good idea to add RUBYOPT=-rubygems to your .bash_rc. This allows you to just use require "library|code_snippet" in the future.

HTH,
Phill

8

Thanks Phill.

I'm impressed by the immediate and useful help from folks on this ML so far! Much appreciated!

Dale

cmdjackryan@googlemail.com wrote:

···

If you are going to work with rubygems more often, it is a good idea to add RUBYOPT=-rubygems to your .bash_rc. This allows you to just use require "library|code_snippet" in the future.