Skip to main content

Using multiple versions of Ruby on the same host

I've recently come across a tool called RVM or Ruby Version Manager. It enables you to run different versions of Ruby on the same host.

RVM uses git so my first step was to install git with the Homebrew package manager. Homebrew is an increasingly popular alternative to MacPorts and Fink.

Note that you'll need to install Xcode first.

/usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.github.com/gist/323731)"
brew install git

Then I just followed the instructions available here.

bash < <( curl http://rvm.beginrescueend.com/releases/rvm-install-head )
source ~/.rvm/scripts/rvm
rvm install jruby,1.9.2-head

Here is what the output looks like:

info: Downloading jruby-bin-1.5.1, this may take a while depending on your connection...
info: Extracting jruby-bin-1.5.1 ...
info: Building Nailgun
info: Installing JRuby to /Users/rpark/.rvm/rubies/jruby-1.5.1
info: Importing initial gems...
info: Installing rake
info: Installing Ruby from source to: /Users/rpark/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-head
info: Downloading source from http://svn.ruby-lang.org/repos/ruby/branches/ruby_1_9_2.
info: Copying from repo to src path...
info: Running autoconf
info: Configuring ruby-1.9.2-head, this may take a while depending on your cpu(s)...
info: Compiling ruby-1.9.2-head, this may take a while depending on your cpu(s)...
info: Installing ruby-1.9.2-head
info: Installation of ruby-1.9.2-head is complete.
info: Updating rubygems for /Users/rpark/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-head@global
info: Updating rubygems for /Users/rpark/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-head
info: adjusting shebangs for ruby-1.9.2-head (gem irb erb ri rdoc testrb rake).
info: Importing initial gems...

The install is done. When you want to switch between different versions of ruby, just use the "rvm use" command:

rvm use 1.9.2-head
11:10:23[~:15]$ which ruby
/Users/rpark/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-head/bin/ruby
11:11:06[~:16]$ which gem
/Users/rpark/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-head/bin/gem
rvm use jruby
11:10:01[~:11]$ which ruby
/Users/rpark/.rvm/rubies/jruby-1.5.1/bin/ruby
11:10:06[~:12]$ which gem
/Users/rpark/.rvm/rubies/jruby-1.5.1/bin/gem

Then add this to the end of ~/.profile:

[[ -s "$HOME/.rvm/scripts/rvm" ]] && . "$HOME/.rvm/scripts/rvm"

RVM allows you to use different gemsets with each ruby version. One use case is working with Rails 2.3.3 and Rails 3.0. I didn't need this feature but it's nice to know it's there.

One final step is TextMate integration. This is described here.

rvm wrapper 1.9.2-head

Then run this script:

#!/usr/bin/env bash

mkdir -p /Library/Application\ Support/TextMate/

sudo chown -R $(whoami) /Library/Application\ Support/TextMate

cd /Library/Application\ Support/TextMate/

if [[ -d Bundles/.svn ]] ; then
  cd Bundles && svn up
else
  if [[ -d Bundles ]] ; then
    mv Bundles Bundles.old
  fi
  svn co http://svn.textmate.org/trunk/Bundles
fi

exit 0

Open up Shell Variables in TextMate's Preferences -> Advanced

Set TM_RUBY to /Users/rpark/.rvm/bin/textmate_ruby

Final step:

cd /Applications/TextMate.app/Contents/SharedSupport/Support/lib/ ; mv Builder.rb Builder.rb.backup

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Building a Hadoop cluster

I've recently had to build a Hadoop cluster for a class in information retrieval . My final project involved building a Hadoop cluster. Here are some of my notes on configuring the nodes in the cluster. These links on configuring a single node cluster and multi node cluster were the most helpful. I downloaded the latest Hadoop distribution then moved it into /hadoop. I had problems with this latest distribution (v.21) so I used v.20 instead. Here are the configuration files I changed: core-site.xml: fs.default.name hdfs://master:9000 hadoop.tmp.dir /hadoop/tmp A base for other temporary directories. hadoop-env.sh: # Variables required by Mahout export HADOOP_HOME=/hadoop export HADOOP_CONF_DIR=/hadoop/conf export MAHOUT_HOME=/Users/rpark/mahout PATH=/hadoop/bin:/Users/rpark/mahout/bin:$PATH # The java implementation to use. Required. export JAVA_HOME=/System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/CurrentJDK/Home hdfs-site...
2 comments
Read more

The #1 Mistake Made by Product People at All Levels

In my 20+ year career in product management for B2B enterprise companies, I have seen product managers at every level make a certain kind of mistake. It is so easy to make that I occasionally make it myself when I'm not careful. What is this mistake? It is to spend too much time on tasks and deliverables that are not core to the product function, which is to to determine and define products to be built. If you keep falling into this trap then ultimately you can't be effective at your job and your company won't sell compelling products. Your primary job as a product manager is to figure out what your market and customers need and make sure it gets built. If you aren't careful, you can spend all of your time performing tasks in support of products such as sales enablement, customer success, product marketing, and pre-sales. How Do You Know This Is Happening? It is easy to fall into this trap for many reasons. Here are a few scenarios that come to mind: Product Marketing ...
1 comment
Read more

Connecting to SQL Server from OS X perl

I've been spending my coding time in the offhours working on Perl instead of Ruby. My coding time in general has been very limited, which is part of the reason for the length of time between updates. :) My latest project is to pull data out of a Microsoft SQL Server database for analysis. I'm using perl for various reasons: I need a crossplatform environment, and I need certain libraries that only work on perl. Some of the target users for my code run on Windows. I know that Ruby runs on Windows but it's not the platform of choice for Ruby developers. The vast majority seem to develop either on OS X or Linux. So Ruby on Windows isn't at the maturity that ActiveState perl is on Windows. In fact, I don't even run native perl anymore on my MacBook Pro. I've switched over to ActiveState perl because I don't need to compile anything every time I want to install new CPAN libraries. And because it's ActiveState, I'm that much more confident it will w...
8 comments
Read more