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title	Make your own gem
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From start to finish, learn how to package your Ruby code in a gem.

Introduction
Your first gem
Starting with bundle gem
Requiring more files
Using other gems
Writing tests
Adding an executable
Documenting your code
Releasing your gem
Wrapup

Introduction

Why create a gem? You could just throw some code into your other project and use it directly. But what if you want to use that code elsewhere, or share it with others? A gem lets you package your library separately and reuse it across projects with a simple gem install or a line in a Gemfile. When you need it in another project, it’s a tiny modification rather than a whole lot of copying.

Creating and publishing your own gem is simple thanks to the tools baked right into RubyGems. Let’s make a simple “hello world” gem, and feel free to play along at home! The code for the gem we’re going to make here is up on GitHub.

Your first gem

I started with just one Ruby file for my hola gem, and the gemspec. You'll need a new name for yours (maybe hola_yourusername) to publish it. Check the Patterns guide for basic recommendations to follow when naming a gem.

$ tree
.
├── hola.gemspec
└── lib
    └── hola.rb

Code for your package is placed within the lib directory. The convention is to have one Ruby file with the same name as your gem, since that gets loaded when require "hola" is run. That one file is in charge of setting up your gem's code and API.

The code inside of lib/hola.rb is pretty bare bones. It just makes sure that you can see some output from the gem:

$ cat lib/hola.rb
class Hola
  def self.hi
    puts "Hello world!"
  end
end

The gemspec defines what’s in the gem, who made it, and the version of the gem. It’s also your interface to RubyGems.org. All of the information you see on a gem page (like jekyll’s) comes from the gemspec.

$ cat hola.gemspec
Gem::Specification.new do |s|
  s.name        = "hola"
  s.version     = "0.0.0"
  s.summary     = "Hola!"
  s.description = "A simple hello world gem"
  s.authors     = ["Nick Quaranto"]
  s.email       = "nick@quaran.to"
  s.files       = ["lib/hola.rb"]
  s.homepage    =
    "https://rubygems.org/gems/hola"
  s.license       = "MIT"
end

The description member can be much longer than you see in this example. If it matches /^== [A-Z]/ then the description will be run through RDoc's markup formatter for display on the RubyGems web site. Be aware though that other consumers of the data might not understand this markup.

Look familiar? The gemspec is also Ruby, so you can wrap scripts to generate the file names and bump the version number. There are lots of fields the gemspec can contain. To see them all check out the full reference.

After you have created a gemspec, you can build a gem from it. Then you can install the generated gem locally to test it out.

$ gem build hola.gemspec
  Successfully built RubyGem
  Name: hola
  Version: 0.0.0
  File: hola-0.0.0.gem

$ gem install ./hola-0.0.0.gem
Successfully installed hola-0.0.0
Parsing documentation for hola-0.0.0
Installing ri documentation for hola-0.0.0
Done installing documentation for hola after 0 seconds
1 gem installed

Of course, the smoke test isn’t over yet: the final step is to require the gem and use it:

$ irb
3.1.2 :001 > require "hola"
=> true 
3.1.2 :002 > Hola.hi
Hello world!
=> nil

Now you can share hola with the rest of the Ruby community. See the Releasing your gem section below to learn how to publish it to RubyGems.org.

Starting with bundle gem

While you can set up a gem manually as shown above, Bundler provides a convenient bundle gem command that generates a scaffold with everything you need. This is the recommended way to start a new gem:

$ bundle gem foodie

This creates a directory with the following structure:

Gemfile: Manages gem dependencies for development. Contains a gemspec line meaning that Bundler will include dependencies specified in foodie.gemspec too. It’s best practice to specify all dependencies in the gemspec.
Rakefile: Includes Bundler’s build, install and release Rake tasks by way of calling Bundler::GemHelper.install_tasks.
foodie.gemspec: The gem specification file, just like the one we wrote manually. Fields to complete include description, homepage, metadata["source_code_uri"], and metadata["changelog_uri"].
lib/foodie.rb: The main file loaded when the gem is required.
lib/foodie/version.rb: Defines a VERSION constant used by the gemspec.
.gitignore: Ignores the pkg directory, .gem files, and .bundle directory.

The command will also ask whether you want to include a CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md and LICENSE.txt. For information on gem naming conventions, see the Name Your Gem guide.

After running bundle gem, you can build and install the gem using Rake tasks:

$ rake build    # Build the gem into the pkg directory
$ rake install  # Build and install the gem to your system

Requiring more files

Having everything in one file doesn't scale well. Let's add some more code to this gem.

$ cat lib/hola.rb
class Hola
  def self.hi(language = "english")
    translator = Translator.new(language)
    translator.hi
  end
end

class Hola::Translator
  def initialize(language)
    @language = language
  end

  def hi
    case @language
    when "spanish"
      "hola mundo"
    else
      "hello world"
    end
  end
end

This file is getting pretty crowded. Let's break out the Translator into a separate file. As mentioned before, the gem's root file is in charge of loading code for the gem. The other files for a gem are usually placed in a directory of the same name of the gem inside of lib. We can split this gem out like so:

$ tree
.
├── hola.gemspec
└── lib
    ├── hola
    │   └── translator.rb
    └── hola.rb

The Translator is now in lib/hola, which can easily be picked up with a require statement from lib/hola.rb. The code for the Translator did not change much:

$ cat lib/hola/translator.rb
class Hola::Translator
  def initialize(language)
    @language = language
  end

  def hi
    case @language
    when "spanish"
      "hola mundo"
    else
      "hello world"
    end
  end
end

But now the hola.rb file has some code to load the Translator:

$ cat lib/hola.rb
class Hola
  def self.hi(language = "english")
    translator = Translator.new(language)
    translator.hi
  end
end

require 'hola/translator'

Gotcha: For newly created folder/file, do not forget to add one entry in hola.gemspec file, as shown-

$ cat hola.gemspec
Gem::Specification.new do |s|
...
  s.files       = ["lib/hola.rb", "lib/hola/translator.rb"]
...
end

without the above change, the new folder would not be included into the installed gem.

Let's try this out. First, fire up irb:

$ irb -Ilib -rhola
3.1.2 :001 >  Hola.hi("english")
=> "hello world"
3.1.2 :002 > Hola.hi("spanish")
=> "hola mundo"

We need to use a strange command line flag here: -Ilib. Usually RubyGems includes the lib directory for you, so end users don't need to worry about configuring their load paths. However, if you're running the code outside of RubyGems, you have to configure things yourself. It's possible to manipulate the $LOAD_PATH from within the code itself, but that's considered an anti-pattern in most cases. There are many more anti-patterns (and good patterns!) for gems, explained in this guide.

If you've added more files to your gem, make sure to remember to add them to your gemspec's files array before publishing a new gem! For this reason (among others), many developers automate this with Hoe, Jeweler, Rake, lorem, or just a dynamic gemspec .

Adding more directories with more code from here is pretty much the same process. Split your Ruby files up when it makes sense! Making a sane order for your project will help you and your future maintainers from headaches down the line.

Using other gems

If your gem depends on another gem, you can specify it in your gemspec using add_dependency. For example, to depend on activesupport:

Gem::Specification.new do |s|
  ...
  s.add_dependency "activesupport", "~> 7.0"
end

Using ~> (the pessimistic version constraint) is recommended to avoid compatibility issues with future major versions. You can also specify development-only dependencies that are needed for testing but not at runtime:

s.add_development_dependency "minitest", "~> 5.0"

When using Bundler, running bundle install will resolve and install all dependencies specified in the gemspec. Anyone who runs gem install yourgemname --dev will get the development dependencies installed too.

Writing tests

Testing your gem is extremely important. Not only does it help assure you that your code works, but it helps others know that your gem does its job. When evaluating a gem, Ruby developers tend to view a solid test suite (or lack thereof) as one of the main reasons for trusting that piece of code.

Gems support adding test files into the package itself so tests can be run when a gem is downloaded.

In short: TEST YOUR GEM! Please!

There are two popular test frameworks in the Ruby community: Minitest and RSpec. Minitest is Ruby's built-in test framework and requires no additional setup. RSpec is a widely used alternative that provides an expressive DSL for writing specs. Either works great — pick whichever you prefer and see the corresponding section below.

Testing with Minitest

Let's add some tests to Hola. This requires adding a few more files, namely a Rakefile and a brand new test directory:

$ tree
.
├── Rakefile
├── bin
│   └── hola
├── hola.gemspec
├── lib
│   ├── hola
│   │   └── translator.rb
│   └── hola.rb
└── test
    └── test_hola.rb

The Rakefile gives you some simple automation for running tests:

$ cat Rakefile
require "rake/testtask"

Rake::TestTask.new do |t|
  t.libs << "test"
end

desc "Run tests"
task default: :test

Now you can run rake test or simply just rake to run tests. Woot! Here's a basic test file for hola:

$ cat test/test_hola.rb
require "minitest/autorun"
require "hola"

class HolaTest < Minitest::Test
  def test_english_hello
    assert_equal "hello world",
      Hola.hi("english")
  end

  def test_any_hello
    assert_equal "hello world",
      Hola.hi("ruby")
  end

  def test_spanish_hello
    assert_equal "hola mundo",
      Hola.hi("spanish")
  end
end

Finally, to run the tests:

$ rake test
Run options: --seed 9351

# Running:

...

Finished in 0.005645s, 531.4108 runs/s, 531.4108 assertions/s.

3 runs, 3 assertions, 0 failures, 0 errors, 0 skips

It's green! Well, depending on your shell colors.

Testing with RSpec

RSpec is another popular testing framework. To use it, first add it as a development dependency in your gemspec:

s.add_development_dependency "rspec", "~> 3.0"

Then create a spec directory and a spec file:

$ tree
.
├── hola.gemspec
├── lib
│   ├── hola
│   │   └── translator.rb
│   └── hola.rb
└── spec
    └── hola_spec.rb

Write your specs in spec/hola_spec.rb:

$ cat spec/hola_spec.rb
require "hola"

describe Hola do
  it "says hello world in english" do
    expect(Hola.hi("english")).to eql("hello world")
  end

  it "says hello world by default" do
    expect(Hola.hi("ruby")).to eql("hello world")
  end

  it "says hola mundo in spanish" do
    expect(Hola.hi("spanish")).to eql("hola mundo")
  end
end

Run the specs with:

$ bundle exec rspec spec

3 examples, 0 failures

For more great examples, the best thing you can do is to hunt around GitHub and read some code.

Adding an executable

In addition to providing libraries of Ruby code, gems can also expose one or many executable files to your shell's PATH. Probably the best known example of this is rake. Another very useful one is the Nokogiri gem, which parses HTML/XML documents. Here's an example:

$ gem install -N nokogiri
[...]
$ nokogiri https://www.ruby-lang.org/
Your document is stored in @doc...
3.1.2 :001 > @doc.title
=> "Ruby Programming Language"

Adding an executable to a gem is a simple process. You just need to place the file in your gem's bin directory, and then add it to the list of executables in the gemspec. Let's add one for the Hola gem. First create the file and make it executable:

$ mkdir bin
$ touch bin/hola
$ chmod a+x bin/hola

The executable file itself just needs a shebang in order to figure out what program to run it with. Here's what Hola's executable looks like:

$ cat bin/hola
#!/usr/bin/env ruby

require 'hola'
puts Hola.hi(ARGV[0])

All it's doing is loading up the gem, and passing the first command line argument as the language to say hello with. Here's an example of running it:

$ ruby -Ilib ./bin/hola
hello world

$ ruby -Ilib ./bin/hola spanish
hola mundo

Finally, to get Hola's executable included when you push the gem, you'll need to add it in the gemspec.

$ head -4 hola.gemspec
Gem::Specification.new do |s|
  s.name        = "hola"
  s.version     = "0.0.1"
  s.executables << "hola"

Push up that new gem, and you'll have your own command line utility published! You can add more executables as well in the bin directory if you need to, there's an executables array field on the gemspec.

Note that you should change the gem's version when pushing up a new release. For more information on gem versioning, see the Patterns Guide

Documenting your code

By default most gems use RDoc to generate docs. There are plenty of great tutorials for learning how to mark up your code with RDoc. Here's a simple example:

# The main Hola driver
class Hola
  # Say hi to the world!
  #
  # Example:
  #   >> Hola.hi("spanish")
  #   => hola mundo
  #
  # Arguments:
  #   language: (String)

  def self.hi(language = "english")
    translator = Translator.new(language)
    puts translator.hi
  end
end

Another great option for documentation is YARD, since when you push a gem, RubyDoc.info generates YARDocs automatically from your gem. YARD is backwards compatible with RDoc, and it has a good introduction on what's different and how to use it.

Releasing your gem

Publishing your gem to RubyGems.org requires an account on the site. To set up your computer with your RubyGems account, run the following command (replacing with your own Email, Password, and OTP if enabled):

$ gem signin
Enter your RubyGems.org credentials.
Don't have an account yet? Create one at https://rubygems.org/sign_up
  Email:   (your-email-address@example.com)
Password:   (your password for RubyGems.org)

API Key name [host-user-20220102030405]:
Please select scopes you want to enable for the API key (y/n)
index_rubygems [y/N]:   n
push_rubygem [y/N]:   y
yank_rubygem [y/N]:   n
add_owner [y/N]:   n
remove_owner [y/N]:   n
access_webhooks [y/N]:   n
show_dashboard [y/N]:   n

You have enabled multi-factor authentication. Please enter OTP code.
Code:   123456
Signed in with API key: host-user-20220102030405.

If you're having problems with curl, OpenSSL, or certificates, you might want to simply try entering the above URL in your browser's address bar. Your browser will ask you to login to RubyGems.org. Enter your username and password. Your browser will now try to download the file api_key.yaml. Save it in ~/.gem and call it 'credentials'

With gem push

Once signed in, you can push the gem directly:

$ gem push hola-0.0.0.gem
Pushing gem to RubyGems.org...
Successfully registered gem: hola (0.0.0)

In just a short time (usually less than a minute), your gem will be available for installation by anyone. You can see it on the RubyGems.org site or grab it from any computer with RubyGems installed:

$ gem list -r hola

*** REMOTE GEMS ***

hola (0.1.3)

$ gem install hola
Fetching hola-0.1.3.gem
Successfully installed hola-0.1.3
Parsing documentation for hola-0.1.3
Installing ri documentation for hola-0.1.3
Done installing documentation for hola after 0 seconds
1 gem installed

With rake release

If you created your gem with bundle gem, you can use the rake release command instead. This command:

Builds the gem into the pkg directory
Creates a git tag for the current version
Pushes the tag to the git remote
Pushes the gem to RubyGems.org

Before releasing, make sure to update the version number in your version file (e.g. lib/hola/version.rb) and commit all changes.

To make version bumping easier, you can use the gem-release gem:

$ gem install gem-release
$ gem bump --version minor  # bumps to the next minor version
$ gem bump --version major  # bumps to the next major version
$ gem bump --version 1.1.1  # bumps to the specified version

Wrapup

With this basic understanding of building your own RubyGem, we hope you'll be on your way to making your own! The next few guides cover patterns in making a gem and the other capabilities of the RubyGems system.

Credits

This tutorial was adapted from "Gem Sawyer, Modern Day Ruby Warrior" <http://rubylearning.com/blog/2010/10/06/gem-sawyer-modern-day-ruby-warrior/>. The code for this gem can be found on GitHub.

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Introduction

Your first gem

Starting with bundle gem

Requiring more files

Using other gems

Writing tests

Testing with Minitest

Testing with RSpec

Adding an executable

Documenting your code

Releasing your gem

With gem push

With rake release

Wrapup

Credits

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Introduction

Your first gem

Starting with bundle gem

Requiring more files

Using other gems

Writing tests

Testing with Minitest

Testing with RSpec

Adding an executable

Documenting your code

Releasing your gem

With gem push

With rake release

Wrapup

Credits