If you are using Ruby, chances are you’re using Rbenv to manage Ruby installations. This post concerns some plugins and tips to make Rbenv even more awesome.
Firstly, I highly recommend using Rbenv for managing your ruby installations. It’s very custimizable and less intrusive than RVM. To get started, install it via Homebrew
brew install rbenv ruby-build
or explore alternative ways here.
Rbenv adheres to the unix philosophy of doing one thing well, which is managing Ruby installations. The responsibility of actually installing rubies is delegated to ruby-build.
Automatic rehashing new gem binaries
When installing gems with binaries you need to run rbend rehash for your
shell to know about them. The
rbenv-gem-rehash
plug-in alleviates this by automatically rehashing newly installed binaries.
Install the plug-in and you’re all set:
git clone https://github.com/sstephenson/rbenv-gem-rehash.git ~/.rbenv/plugins/rbenv-gem-rehash
Add default gems for new rubies
If you’re tired of having to install common gems like Bundler every time you
add a new version of Ruby,
rbenv-default-gems is for
you. It will install gems defined by you as part of doing rbenv install.
Install the plug-in:
git clone https://github.com/sstephenson/rbenv-default-gems.git ~/.rbenv/plugins/rbenv-default-gems
Define a list of default gems in ~/.rbenv/default-gems like so:
bundler
pry --pre
pry-doc '~ 0.5'
cheat
Project specific environment variables
If you’d like to use some custom environment variables for a project, rbenv-vars is a nice solution.
Install the plug-in:
git clone https://github.com/sstephenson/rbenv-vars.git ~/.rbenv/plugins/rbenv-vars
Define custom environment variables in a .rbenv-vars:
RUBY_GC_HEAP_INIT_SLOTS=600000
RUBY_GC_HEAP_FREE_SLOTS=600000
RUBY_GC_HEAP_GROWTH_FACTOR=1.25
RUBY_GC_HEAP_GROWTH_MAX_SLOTS=300000
This example will apply some garbage collection tweaks when Ruby is run from this folder.
Conclusion
Rbenv is a great customizable way of managing multiple ruby installations. In closing, I’d like to thank Sam Stephenson for it and its associated plug-ins.