# Backwards compatibility **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [August 25, 2009, 3:29am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/backwards-compatibility/174324 "2009-08-25T03:29:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![artrat](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/b2d939/32.png) [@artrat](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/artrat)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2009, 3:29am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/backwards-compatibility/174324/1 "2009-08-25T03:29:21Z")
does any one know how revert between rails versions without rewriting lots of code, i.e. backwards compatibility, isnt there a framework that handles the changes so your applications will work\>? ---
**Author:** ![artrat](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/b2d939/32.png) [@artrat](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/artrat)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2009, 4:05am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/backwards-compatibility/174324/2 "2009-08-25T04:05:26Z")
I’ve never seen something like that but why would you ever want to “revert” your code to work on a previous version? The only possible solution is to add a lot of “ifs” to every single thing that changed. - Maurício Linhares [http://codeshooter.wordpress.com/](http://codeshooter.wordpress.com/) | [http://twitter.com/mauriciojr](http://twitter.com/mauriciojr) On Mon, Aug 24, 2009 at 10:29 PM, Arthur ---
**Author:** ![artrat](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/b2d939/32.png) [@artrat](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/artrat)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2009, 5:26pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/backwards-compatibility/174324/3 "2009-08-25T17:26:58Z")
In short, no. In longer, why on EARTH would you want to run on an older version? You’re asking for trouble. –Matt JOnes On Aug 24, 9:29 pm, Arthur R. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) ---
**Author:** ![artrat](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/b2d939/32.png) [@artrat](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/artrat)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2009, 11:47pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/backwards-compatibility/174324/4 "2009-08-25T23:47:03Z")
Well, i havent the need to go backwards, but testing out xlsuite I have tried to get it running with the code from git and the bundled rails wasnt working well. I ran on Debian, rails 2.3.3,ruby 1.8.7 and xl is on 2.2.2 but I couldnt get it working so hence the reason to ask. I did remove the newer version and installed 2.2.2 to get it to work but it was complaining about encoding issues… maybe it wasnt the best idea but a lazy thought… ---
**Author:** ![artrat](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/b2d939/32.png) [@artrat](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/artrat)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2009, 12:27am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/backwards-compatibility/174324/5 "2009-08-26T00:27:56Z")
thanks, not really the situ for this case - but good advice for future ---
**Author:** ![artrat](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/b2d939/32.png) [@artrat](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/artrat)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2009, 9:46am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/backwards-compatibility/174324/6 "2009-08-26T09:46:11Z")
2009/8/25 Arthur R. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid): > Well, i havent the need to go backwards, but testing out xlsuite I have > tried to get it running with the code from git and the bundled rails > wasnt working well. Â I ran on Debian, rails 2.3.3,ruby 1.8.7 and xl is > on 2.2.2 but I couldnt get it working so hence the reason to ask. Â I did > remove the newer version and installed 2.2.2 to get it to work but it > was complaining about encoding issues… You don’t need to remove a later version of Rails to use an earlier version, just setup the version you want in environment.rb, for example RAILS\_GEM\_VERSION = ‘2.3.2’ unless defined? RAILS\_GEM\_VERSION If you want to freeze that version into your app then you can do rake VERSION=2.3.2 rails:freeze:gems Colin ---
**Author:** ![artrat](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/b2d939/32.png) [@artrat](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/artrat)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2009, 11:56pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/backwards-compatibility/174324/7 "2009-08-25T23:56:49Z")
On Mon, Aug 24, 2009 at 8:29 PM, Arthur Rats[removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > does any one know how revert between rails versions without rewriting > lots of code, i.e. backwards compatibility, isnt there a framework that > handles the changes so your applications will work\>? The tool you want is you. You write tests for you app then when you move forward into a new Rails version you run your tests and fix the issues, pretty simple actually. – Greg D. [http://destiney.com/](http://destiney.com/)