How does Ruby know where to find a required file?
Solution 1
When you start your rails app it runs config/boot.rb which calls Rails::Initializer.set_load_path
and thatsets up the $LOAD_PATH
.
Ruby uses that list of directories to find the files specified on a require
line. If you give it an absolute path like require '/home/lolindrath/ruby/lib.rb'
it will skip that search.
This is roughly analogous to #include <stdlib.h>
in C/C++ where it searches the include path you give the compiler to find that header file.
Solution 2
I believe because your paths are set up in your /config/environment.rb file:
require File.join(File.dirname(__FILE__), 'boot')
Solution 3
Sure. In /config/boot.rb (called in environment.rb) the RAILS_ROOT is set up as so:
RAILS_ROOT = "#{File.dirname(__FILE__)}/.." unless defined?(RAILS_ROOT)
Which allows you to require things from the root I believe. Hope that's the answer anyway!
eric2323223
Updated on June 04, 2022Comments
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eric2323223 almost 2 years
Here is one more newbie question:
require 'tasks/rails'
I saw this line in Rakefile in the root path of every rails project. I guess this line is used to require vendor/rails/railties/lib/tasks/rails.rb to get all rake tasks loaded:
$VERBOSE = nil # Load Rails rakefile extensions Dir["#{File.dirname(__FILE__)}/*.rake"].each { |ext| load ext } # Load any custom rakefile extensions Dir["#{RAILS_ROOT}/lib/tasks/**/*.rake"].sort.each { |ext| load ext } Dir["#{RAILS_ROOT}/vendor/plugins/*/**/tasks/**/*.rake"].sort.each { |ext| load ext }
My question is why only 'tasks/rails' is specified for the require method, but not the full path of the file?
Thanks in advance.
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eric2323223 over 15 yearsI don't understand, could you please be more specific?
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Lolindrath over 15 yearsThis gets the filename of the script currently running, it gets the directory that file lives in using File.dirname and then appends a new file to it (i.e. requiring a file that you know is in the same directory but not in the $LOAD_PATH). Then File.join safely makes the new filename.
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Rory O'Kane about 12 yearsWorking link to Rails 2.3’s
set_load_path
. (Line number may change, but file probably won’t.) (I don’t know where Rails 3 puts that same code.)