Over the past few months, several people have posted on various mailing
lists, including this one, that their rubygems install on OSX fails
with the following error:
/usr/local/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/rubygems/cmd_manager.rb:52:in
initialize': uninitialized constant Gem::CommandManager::HelpCommand (NameError) from /usr/local/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/rubygems/cmd_manager.rb:46:innew’
from /usr/local/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/rubygems/cmd_manager.rb:46:in
instance' from /usr/local/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/rubygems/gem_runner.rb:25:inrun’
from /usr/local/bin/gem:23
I have discovered the cause of this error, at least on my machine, but
not the final underlying cause.
in $LIBDIR/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/rubygems/, there is a file named
gem_commands.rb ; on my machine, this file was empty. However, there
was also gem_commands.1.rb , which contained the original content of
gem_commands.rb . To fix the error, simply move gem_commands.1.rb onto
gem_commands.rb .
Thanks go to LoganCapaldo on IRC for being patient with me and guiding
me through the sub-basement levels of Ruby’s library system.
Dan Uznanski