# How to Affect Plugin Load Order **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [January 31, 2006, 2:36am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-to-affect-plugin-load-order/53278 "2006-01-31T02:36:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![cwd](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/da6949/32.png) [@cwd](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/cwd)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2006, 2:36am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-to-affect-plugin-load-order/53278/1 "2006-01-31T02:36:26Z")
I’m using bundled\_resource, login\_engine, and a few other plugins. It appears Rails considers plugins in alphabetic order. Turns out that there is a particular order that will work and alphabetic ain’t it. The login engine must be loaded first. Bundled resource then includes ‘application\_helper’ and the application helper includes LoginEngine. If bundled\_resource is allowed to load first, when it includes ‘application\_helper’ the include LoginEngine fails with an undefined constant. Is there a way to change plugin load order? Thanks ---
**Author:** ![cwd](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/da6949/32.png) [@cwd](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/cwd)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2006, 4:17am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-to-affect-plugin-load-order/53278/2 "2006-01-31T04:17:00Z")
On 1/30/06, Steve R. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > Is there a way to change plugin load order? > > Thanks Why not just fudge the names a bit? a\_login\_engine will cause it to load first 🙂 – Rick O. [http://techno-weenie.net](http://techno-weenie.net) ---
**Author:** ![cwd](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/da6949/32.png) [@cwd](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/cwd)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2006, 5:35am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-to-affect-plugin-load-order/53278/3 "2006-01-31T05:35:20Z")
I actually did it the other way around: zbundled\_resource. But seriously, we deal with dependencies all over the development process. Ruby Gems are good with dependencies, and other parts of Rails are. Isn’t there a cleaner way to deal with this? Steve R. Rick O. wrote: > On 1/30/06, Steve R. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > > > Is there a way to change plugin load order? > > > > Thanks > > Why not just fudge the names a bit? a\_login\_engine will cause it to > load first 🙂 > > – > Rick O. > [http://techno-weenie.net](http://techno-weenie.net) ---
**Author:** ![cwd](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/da6949/32.png) [@cwd](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/cwd)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2006, 6:07pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-to-affect-plugin-load-order/53278/4 "2006-01-31T18:07:07Z")
This issue isn’t really related to the fact that engines need to be ‘started’, as the problem would occur with if the file being require’d at the top of application\_helper.rb was a part of any plugin that hadn’t been processed yet. The next release of Rails should make things _slightly_ better, because as I recall I had a patch accepted which added all the plugin ‘lib’ directories before performing any of the init.rb code. However I’m not sure if that code remains intact. The ‘best’ way that I can think of to avoid this issue at the moment would be for plugins not to load files like application\_helper. However, I can perfectly understand why Duane has done this… - james On 1/31/06, Gerret A. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > patching the rails source. > > > > > > > > removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid > > [http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails](http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails) > > * * * > > Rails mailing list > removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid > [http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails](http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails) – - J \* ~ ---
**Author:** ![cwd](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/da6949/32.png) [@cwd](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/cwd)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2006, 3:27pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-to-affect-plugin-load-order/53278/5 "2006-02-02T15:27:03Z")
While the plugin load order hasn’t necessarily been fixed, I just want to mention that bundled\_resource no longer loads application\_helper, and therefore has no conflict with the engines plugin. It turns out the fix was simple: include bundle helper modules in the ActionView::Base class instead of the ApplicationHelper class. Works like a charm 🙂 I wonder if engines could use this technique also? It might be nice for some functionality to be automagic so that no modification to ApplicationHelper is necessary. Duane ---
**Author:** ![cwd](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/da6949/32.png) [@cwd](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/cwd)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2006, 8:08am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-to-affect-plugin-load-order/53278/6 "2006-01-31T08:08:36Z")
Steve, the engines plugin requires you to call “start\_engine” for just this reason – if your engine depends on another plugin, there’s no way to guarantee that the dependency will be loaded before the engines plugin. IIRC, the idea is for “start\_engine” to disappear as soon as rails supports user-defined plugin load order. So long story short, I don’t believe there’s a way to determine that load order atm, other than by patching the rails source. cheers Gerret ---
**Author:** ![cwd](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/da6949/32.png) [@cwd](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/cwd)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2006, 3:42pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-to-affect-plugin-load-order/53278/7 "2006-02-02T15:42:12Z")
It’s something I’ve thought about, and engine developers are of course free to do (since engines are still just plugins). At the same time, though, I can’t help but feel it’s a bit wrong to slip so deep into the class heirarchy, though I’m not sure why. Can someone please convince me that it’s a kosher thing to do? In all truth I would _love_ to remove the need to add includes to ApplicationControlller/Helper… – - J \* ~