module Kernel
Public Instance Methods
Private Instance Methods
Use #gem to activate a specific
version of gem_name
.
requirements
is a list of version requirements that the
specified gem must match, most commonly “= example.version.number”. See Gem::Requirement for how to specify a
version requirement.
If you will be activating the latest version of a gem, there is no need to call #gem, Kernel#require will do the right thing for you.
#gem returns true if the gem was activated, otherwise false. If the gem could not be found, didn't match the version requirements, or a different version was already activated, an exception will be raised.
#gem should be called before any require statements (otherwise RubyGems may load a conflicting library version).
In older RubyGems versions, the environment variable GEM_SKIP could be used to skip activation of specified gems, for example to test out changes that haven't been installed yet. Now RubyGems defers to -I and the RUBYLIB environment variable to skip activation of a gem.
Example:
GEM_SKIP=libA:libB ruby -I../libA -I../libB ./mycode.rb
# File lib/rubygems.rb, line 1227 def gem(gem_name, *requirements) # :doc: skip_list = (ENV['GEM_SKIP'] || "").split(/:/) raise Gem::LoadError, "skipping #{gem_name}" if skip_list.include? gem_name spec = Gem::Dependency.new(gem_name, *requirements).to_spec spec.activate if spec end