Q: HOWTO: install a gem using rake?

Ruby
1

Is there a standard way to write a gem install task if you build it
with GemPackageTask? AFAICT GemPackageTask doesn’t supply one which
surprises me a little. I use ‘sh “gem install …”’ and I’m worried
about how portable it is.

(BTW, would this be an appropriate question for the rake-devel list?
If so then I’ll sign up.)

Thanks,

Jeremy H.

2

On 2008-12-17, Aldric G. <“aldric[remove]”@trevoke.net> wrote:

Jeremy H. wrote:

I use ‘sh “gem install …”’ and I’m worried about how portable it
is.

Surrounding a command with backticks sends it out to the OS.
e.g. ping localhost

Sorry, I didn’t make it clear that this “sh” is a Rake method that
does (I imagine) pretty much the same thing as backticks. The
Rakefiles of other gems often use more complicated constructions
involving Gem::RUBY etc. and I wonder if this is to make things more
portable. Sadly I can’t Google up anything that says “the right way
to do it is … and here’s why”. It seems that most people bake
their own solution without giving their reasons. Unless I’m missing
something, of course.

Regards,

Jeremy H.