# Gem Documentation Doesn't seem to help with use of modified local gem installations

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/gem-documentation-doesnt-seem-to-help-with-use-of-modified-local-gem-installations/180819>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [December 29, 2009, 8:45pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/gem-documentation-doesnt-seem-to-help-with-use-of-modified-local-gem-installations/180819 "2009-12-29T20:45:35Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Xeno\_C](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/x/958977/32.png) [@Xeno\_C](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Xeno_C)\
**Post date:** [December 29, 2009, 8:45pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/gem-documentation-doesnt-seem-to-help-with-use-of-modified-local-gem-installations/180819/1 "2009-12-29T20:45:35Z")

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Say, I am working to try modifying a gem I have partly installed,  
locally, but  
the gem documents don’t help me, so far, to learn how to look up and run  
things.  
I can see from the README how to reinstall from inside the source  
directory,  
but here are some questions:

1. Is it possible to look up older versions of the gem, that might  
work, from  
the repository, so that I could install one of them using --version ?

2. Is there a gem option to install from a local gem directory so that  
this  
could be done without the SA shell commands, but rather with a canonical  
“gem”  
sequence to do the ruby extconf.rb;make;make install

?

xc

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Xeno\_C](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/x/958977/32.png) [@Xeno\_C](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Xeno_C)\
**Post date:** [December 29, 2009, 9:01pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/gem-documentation-doesnt-seem-to-help-with-use-of-modified-local-gem-installations/180819/2 "2009-12-29T21:01:23Z")

</div>

On 29.12.2009 20:45, Xeno C. wrote:

> 1. Is it possible to look up older versions of the gem, that might work,  
> from the repository, so that I could install one of them using --version ?

gem help search yields:  
-a or --all to search for all versions of a given gem.

PS C:\Users\CynicalRyan\> gem search nokogiri -ar

\*\*\* REMOTE GEMS \*\*\*

nokogiri (1.4.1, 1.4.0, 1.3.3, 1.3.2, 1.3.1, 1.3.0, 1.2.3, 1.2.2, 1.2.1,  
1.2.0, 1.1.1, 1.1.0, 1.0.7, 1.0.6, 1.0.5, 1.0.4  
, 1.0.3, 1.0.2, 1.0.1, 1.0.0)  
superfeedr-nokogiri (1.4.0.20091116183308)

> 1. Is there a gem option to install from a local gem directory so that  
> this could be done without the SA shell commands, but rather with a  
> canonical “gem” sequence to do the ruby extconf.rb;make;make install

If by “local gem directory” you mean a directory containing gems you  
downloaded, then yes. Just type “gem install -.gem”,  
and RubyGems does its thing.

You cannot skip compiling, however, if that is a necessary step, as far  
as I am aware of.