Virtualrb

= virtualrb - Virtualize Ruby installations

THIS IS ALPHA SOFTWARE THAT HAS NOT BEEN TESTED WELL---USE AT YOUR OWN RISK!

Idea inspired by Python's virtualenv: http://pypi.python.org/pypi/virtualenv

== Rationale

Do you want to play with Ruby libraries and gems, but don't want to mess up your system installation?

Do you need to run several applications on the same system and want full control over the installed versions?

Do you need to test your code under various setups?

Are you a user and want to install your own libraries and gems on a shared server without having to hack around?

Then virtualrb is for you! It creates a virtual Ruby installation where you can tinker around without modifiying the system Ruby.

== Usage

virtualrb $ROOT to set up a new virtual Ruby in $ROOT/bin/ruby

virtualrb $ROOT /usr/bin/ruby-2.0.0 to set up a new virtual Ruby using the given interpreter (default: search "ruby" in $PATH.)

Now, you just can run

$ROOT/bin/ruby script.rb

or

$ROOT/bin/irb

or other tools using -S:

$ROOT/bin/ruby -S rake ...

You can install/update gems inside the virtualized environment using

$ROOT/bin/gem

== What works

• Plain Ruby libraries.
• Ruby apps with correct she-bang line, pointing to the virtualized Ruby.
• Installing Rubygems, including building native extensions.
• Assuming $RUBY is the current interpreter (e.g. rake's FileUtils.ruby).
• Installing non-gem libraries to $ROOT/lib and being able to require them.

== What won't work

• Too clever (or too naive!) software.
• Software that trusts rbconfig.rb or Gem.ruby.

== How it works

• We build a POSIX shell wrapper script for Ruby which sets GEM_HOME, GEM_PATH, GEMRC, PATH, RUBYLIB and RUBY. That's all.

== History

Based upon a similar tool for Ruby 1.8, written in 2008 (see git tag "v1"), way before RVM, rbenv, chruby.

== Copyright

virtualrb is in the public domain.

To the extent possible under law, Christian Neukirchen chneukirchen@gmail.com has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to this work.

http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/