# Require\_all 1.1.0: the final nail on the coffin of require File.dirname(\_\_FILE\_\_) **URL:** \ **Category:** Ruby\ **Created:** [July 19, 2009, 3:04am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/require-all-1-1-0-the-final-nail-on-the-coffin-of-require-file-dirname-file/172308 "2009-07-19T03:04:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![murfhy](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/d26b3c/32.png) [@murfhy](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/murfhy)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2009, 3:04am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/require-all-1-1-0-the-final-nail-on-the-coffin-of-require-file-dirname-file/172308/1 "2009-07-19T03:04:13Z")
require File.dirname( **FILE** ) seems like an incredibly common idiom. But boy is it ugly! Ruby is a beautiful language so why should we litter it with ugly statements like that? Now you don’t have to! At the suggestion of Roger P. I’ve added a new feature to the require\_all gem. Introducing require\_rel. Here’s how it works… let’s start with an ugly require statement: require File.dirname( **FILE** ) + ‘foobar’ Yeech. Can we do better? Yes we can: require\_rel ‘foobar’ Done! The require\_rel statement works relative to the directory the caller is located in. Bye bye File.dirname( **FILE** )! Even better, require\_rel has the same code loading powers as require\_all. If ‘foobar’ is a directory, it will look for all the .rb files under the foobar directory and use require\_all’s automagic dependency resolution to load them in the proper order. (In case anyone is wondering, if you have a ‘foobar’ directory and a ‘foobar.rb’ require\_all will prefer the directory over the .rb file). Or you can give require\_rel a custom glob which works relative to the current file. If you’d like to learn more, check it out on github: [http://github.com/tarcieri/require\_all/tree/master](http://github.com/tarcieri/require_all/tree/master)