# HELP! New to Ruby **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [August 9, 2006, 11:03am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/help-new-to-ruby/102022 "2006-08-09T11:03:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Janeve\_George](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@Janeve\_George](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Janeve_George)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2006, 11:03am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/help-new-to-ruby/102022/1 "2006-08-09T11:03:03Z")
Hi all, I am new to Ruby programming language. I know that require ‘gemname’ is used for using some gems in our application. I have a sample application developed in Ruby on Rails which have the following lines of code: require ‘zlib’ require ‘stringio’ Can you plz help me to know what these gems are used for. It would be very helpful if you could give some hyperlinks to some articles that explains them in detail… Thanks in advance, Janeve ---
**Author:** ![Janeve\_George](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@Janeve\_George](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Janeve_George)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2006, 11:12am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/help-new-to-ruby/102022/2 "2006-08-09T11:12:42Z")
Janeve George wrote: > Hi all, > > I am new to Ruby programming language. I know that require ‘gemname’ is > used for using some gems in our application. I have a sample application > developed in Ruby on Rails which have the following lines of code: > > require ‘zlib’ > require ‘stringio’ > > Can you plz help me to know what these gems are used for. It would be > very helpful if you could give some hyperlinks to some articles that > explains them in detail… > > Thanks in advance, > Janeve Those are not gems, they are part of the standard library. Documentation for them can be found at [ruby-doc.org](http://ruby-doc.org): [RDoc Documentation](http://www.ruby-doc.org/stdlib/) ---
**Author:** ![Janeve\_George](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@Janeve\_George](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Janeve_George)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2006, 11:15am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/help-new-to-ruby/102022/3 "2006-08-09T11:15:53Z")
Ohh… Thanks for the correction… 🙂 Janeve ---
**Author:** ![Janeve\_George](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@Janeve\_George](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Janeve_George)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2006, 4:28pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/help-new-to-ruby/102022/4 "2006-08-09T16:28:48Z")
On Aug 9, 2006, at 5:03 AM, Janeve George wrote: > Can you plz help me to know what these gems are used for. It would be > very helpful if you could give some hyperlinks to some articles that > explains them in detail… > > Thanks in advance, > Janeve [http://www.google.com/search?q=ruby+zlib](http://www.google.com/search?q=ruby+zlib) [http://www.google.com/search?q=ruby+stringio](http://www.google.com/search?q=ruby+stringio) ---
**Author:** ![Janeve\_George](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@Janeve\_George](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Janeve_George)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2006, 2:12pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/help-new-to-ruby/102022/5 "2006-08-15T14:12:22Z")
Janeve George wrote: > very helpful if you could give some hyperlinks to some articles that > explains them in detail… > > Thanks in advance, > Janeve Well, zlib is for compression (ZIP handling), stringio I’m not sure about. Regards, Henning K. ---
**Author:** ![Janeve\_George](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@Janeve\_George](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Janeve_George)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2006, 2:18pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/help-new-to-ruby/102022/6 "2006-08-15T14:18:46Z")
On Wed, Aug 09, 2006 at 11:03:03AM +0200, Janeve George wrote: > I am new to Ruby programming language. I know that require ‘gemname’ is > used for using some gems in our application. I have a sample application > developed in Ruby on Rails which have the following lines of code: > > require ‘zlib’ Compression routines. “ri Zlib” > require ‘stringio’ Pretending that strings are files. “ri StringIO” > Can you plz help me to know what these gems are used for. It would be They’re not gems, they’re classes in the standard library. > very helpful if you could give some hyperlinks to some articles that > explains them in detail… I think the documentation that ships with Ruby is pretty comprehensive. Google can help more, or asking a specific question on the ruby-talk mailing list (since neither class is Rails-specific). - Matt