Mac OS X 10.8 comes with Ruby 1.8.7 (patch level 358). This version has been retired and the developers will no longer be supporting it. Most Ruby programs now support Ruby 1.9.3 and/or Ruby 2.0.0.
There are several ways to support multiple versions of Ruby. The most popular are RVM and rbenv. We used to use RVM, but have switched to rbenv because it is focused and does its job with fewer tricks. Here's a list of reasons to prefer rbenv.
We install rbenv and ruby-build, which will integrate with rbenv to install the versions of Ruby we want.
We also install several rbenv plugins. The rbenv-gem-rehash plugin automatically runs rbenv rehash
whenever necessary. The rbenv-vars plugin allows Ruby programs to define environment variables. The rbenv-binstubs plugin integrates with RubyGems and Bundler to make sure that the right version of Ruby is used to run any programs that require Ruby.
brew update brew install rbenv brew install ruby-build brew install rbenv-aliases brew install rbenv-gem-rehash brew install rbenv-vars brew install rbenv-binstubs # Make sure rbenv is initialized properly. if ! grep 'rbenv' ~/.bashrc >/dev/null ; then echo >> ~/.bashrc '' echo >> ~/.bashrc '# rbenv Ruby environment manager' echo >> ~/.bashrc 'if which rbenv ; then eval "$(rbenv init -)" ; fi' fi eval "$(rbenv init -)"
First we'll install a couple libraries that can be used by all the Ruby versions.
brew install openssl brew install libyaml
We'll build the latest patch levels of Ruby 1.9.3, 2.0.0, and 2.1.
rbenv install --list rbenv install 2.1.1 rbenv install 2.0.0-p451 rbenv install 1.9.3-p545
We'll also install the latest Rubinius.
rbenv install rbx-2.2.5
We'll set aliases for the latest patch levels, so we don't have to specify the full versions number. (This is not a good idea for .ruby-version files, but is handy for manual switching.)
rbenv alias 1.9 1.9.3-p545 rbenv alias 1.9.3 1.9.3-p545 rbenv alias 2.0 2.0.0-p451 rbenv alias 2.0.0 2.0.0-p451 rbenv alias 2.1 2.1.1 rbenv alias rbx rbx-2.2.5
To update the versions of Ruby you have installed, first you have to upgrade ruby-build:
brew update brew upgrade ruby-build rbenv install --list
Then you can install the new version(s) of Ruby. Be sure to install all the basic gems, update your aliases and documentation.
We'll set Ruby 2.1.1 as the default.
rbenv versions rbenv global 2.1.1 rbenv shell 2.1.1
We only need to install gems that we use outside of applications. This will generally be executables written in Ruby, or things we want inside of IRB. For everything else, we'll use Bundler to install applications-specific gems.
First we configure RubyGems to not generate any local documentation:
[ -f ~/.gemrc ] || cat > ~/.gemrc <<EOF --- :verbose: true :update_sources: true gem: --no-ri --no-rdoc EOF
Then we install our gems for each version of Ruby (except the system version):
GEMS_TO_INSTALL='rake bundler awesome_print hirb wirble pry rails haml html2haml' ALL_RUBY_VERSIONS='1.9 2.0 2.1 rbx' CURRENT_RUBY_VERSION=$(rbenv version | cut -d' ' -f1) for ruby_version in $ALL_RUBY_VERSIONS ; do rbenv shell $ruby_version gem install $GEMS_TO_INSTALL done rbenv shell $CURRENT_RUBY_VERSION
Binstubs are a bit tricky, but the general idea is to have a small executable in a directory in the front of the $PATH that will set up the environment, then call the real executable. For rbenv, the rbenv-binstubs plugin handles this for us, without having to add ./bin
to the $PATH (which would be a security issue). It gets in front of the binstubs created by RubyGems and Bundler to ensure the proper version of Ruby is used.
To get this working, we need to tell Bundler to always create binstubs:
bundle config --global bin bin
NOTE: Rails 4 does not like Bundler's binstubs. You'll need to run rake rails:update:bin
after running bundle install
the first time, to override Bundler's binstubs with Rails' binstubs.