# Did the order of autoloading assets change in Rails 2.1? **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [June 12, 2008, 7:14pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/did-the-order-of-autoloading-assets-change-in-rails-2-1/140299 "2008-06-12T19:14:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![weyus](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/7ab992/32.png) [@weyus](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/weyus)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2008, 7:14pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/did-the-order-of-autoloading-assets-change-in-rails-2-1/140299/1 "2008-06-12T19:14:43Z")
All, I upgraded to Rails 2.1 from 2.0.2 and my app. started to show problems with not having access to certain constants, etc. I have several “requires” set up in environment.rb so that various modules will be available for the app. I’ve played with it some, and the best theory that I can come up with so far is that the RAILS\_ROOT/lib modules are now loaded before environment.rb is executed? Were there any major changes to boot.rb from 2.0.2 to 2.1? Confusing. Wes ---
**Author:** ![weyus](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/7ab992/32.png) [@weyus](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/weyus)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2008, 7:40pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/did-the-order-of-autoloading-assets-change-in-rails-2-1/140299/2 "2008-06-12T19:40:16Z")
My problem appears to be that I have a library in RAILS\_ROOT/lib (cache\_manager.rb) that is _definitely_ being loaded _before_ config/environment.rb is being executed. Since the requisite requires to allow this library to load successfully are in environment.rb, and it hasn’t been executed yet, the file won’t load. So this leads me to two questions: 1. What causes the RAILS\_ROOT/lib files to be loaded when you start up Rails? 2. Did this used to occur _after_ the execution of environment.rb but now it doesn’t? I recognize that there may be something in my app. that is causing the library to be loaded, but I haven’t found it yet, and of course, this only started happening when I moved to 2.1, so I’m thinking it’s a framework issue. Wes ---
**Author:** ![weyus](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/7ab992/32.png) [@weyus](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/weyus)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2008, 7:55pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/did-the-order-of-autoloading-assets-change-in-rails-2-1/140299/3 "2008-06-12T19:55:49Z")
ANSWER: I had requires that were needed for libraries in RAILS\_ROOT/lib at the bottom of my environment.rb file. When I moved these requires to _before_ the initializer block in environment.rb, everything worked fine. Wes ---
**Author:** ![weyus](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/7ab992/32.png) [@weyus](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/weyus)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2008, 7:46pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/did-the-order-of-autoloading-assets-change-in-rails-2-1/140299/4 "2008-06-12T19:46:45Z")
On 12 Jun 2008, at 18:40, Wes G. wrote: > So this leads me to two questions: > > 1. What causes the RAILS\_ROOT/lib files to be loaded when you start up > Rails? > I’d be surprised if anything in there is loaded systematically > > 2. Did this used to occur _after_ the execution of environment.rb but > now it doesn’t? > > I recognize that there may be something in my app. that is causing the > library to be loaded, but I haven’t found it yet, and of course, this > only started happening when I moved to 2.1, so I’m thinking it’s a > framework issue. > stick a breakpoint on the first line of cache\_manager and see what the > stack trace looks like ? Fred ---
**Author:** ![weyus](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/7ab992/32.png) [@weyus](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/weyus)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2008, 11:25pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/did-the-order-of-autoloading-assets-change-in-rails-2-1/140299/5 "2008-06-12T23:25:52Z")
Wes G. wrote: > environment.rb. > OR > > 1. Require in those lower level dependencies before the > “Rails::Initializer.run” block in environment.rb. > > Wes THE FINAL ANSWER: 😉 1. create an /initializers folder inside RAILS\_ROOT/config 2. create a application.rb file inside that folder and move all your ‘requires’ into it. If you create a new rails project under 2.1 and look at what it does in your environment.rb and in the initializers folder you’ll see the Rails 2.1 way this kind of this is supposed to be handled. My understanding is that you can create any/as many .rb files inside of initializers that you want (to separate different needs) and they’ll all be loaded. So, you could have an initializers/foo\_feature.rb and an initializers/bar\_extensions.rb, etc, etc, etc. – [http://www.5valleys.com/](http://www.5valleys.com/) [http://www.workingwithrails.com/person/8078](http://www.workingwithrails.com/person/8078) ---
**Author:** ![weyus](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/7ab992/32.png) [@weyus](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/weyus)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2008, 8:10pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/did-the-order-of-autoloading-assets-change-in-rails-2-1/140299/6 "2008-06-12T20:10:02Z")
THE REAL ANSWER: application.rb is now loaded as part of the call to the “Rails::Initializer.run” block in environment.rb, and it wasn’t in pre-2.1 versions of Rails. In this case, application.rb had dependencies that is was requiring. These libraries, which were require’d in application.rb in turn had dependencies that were not being “required in” until the end of environment.rb. Before this worked because environment.rb would be run before application.rb (the first time application.rb would be loaded was on the first request). But now, if application.rb needs anything to be loaded, you must either: 1. Ensure that the full dependency tree is satisfied in application.rb itself OR 1. Require in those lower level dependencies before the “Rails::Initializer.run” block in environment.rb. Wes ---
**Author:** ![weyus](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/7ab992/32.png) [@weyus](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/weyus)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2008, 11:34pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/did-the-order-of-autoloading-assets-change-in-rails-2-1/140299/7 "2008-06-12T23:34:42Z")
Jon G. wrote: > THE FINAL ANSWER: 😉 > > 1. create an /initializers folder inside RAILS\_ROOT/config > 2. create a application.rb file inside that folder and move all your > ‘requires’ into it. > > If you create a new rails project under 2.1 and look at what it does in > your environment.rb and in the initializers folder you’ll see the Rails > 2.1 way this kind of this is supposed to be handled. > > My understanding is that you can create any/as many .rb files inside of > initializers that you want (to separate different needs) and they’ll > all be loaded. So, you could have an initializers/foo\_feature.rb and an > initializers/bar\_extensions.rb, etc, etc, etc. This is a good final answer. I already have 3 initializer files for various pieces of Rails that I’m monkey patching, and this makes sense as well. Too bad that this change in application.rb processing didn’t happen in 2.0 when I was having to hack all over my environment.rb file anyway :). WG