Feature #4979: `require 'foo'` is ambiguous when there is both foo.rb and foo.so

• Status: Rejected
• Assignee: -
• Target version: -

[terceiro (Antonio Terceiro)]

=begin

When there is both foo.rb and foo.so and a require 'foo' call is evaluated, Ruby 1.8 will load either foo.rb or foo.so depending on which order their directories are in $LOAD_PATH.

Ruby 1.8 will load the first foo.rb or foo.so it finds in the $LOAD_PATH.

Ruby 1.9 will first look for foo.rb in all directories, and only after that it will look for foo.so in all directories. This behaviour seems more consistent than the one in Ruby 1.8. It also matches the most common use case, which is foo.rb loading its sister foo.so that contains native-code implementations needed by foo.rb.

I have attached a test case that shows these different behaviours of Ruby 1.8 and Ruby 1.9.

I propose to make Ruby 1.8 work the same way as Ruby 1.9. If there is consensus about that, I can try to write a patch to backport the behaviour of Ruby 1.9 for Ruby 1.8.

=end

[nobu (Nobuyoshi Nakada)]

• Tracker changed from Bug to Feature

Obviously this is a spec change request.

[terceiro (Antonio Terceiro)]

What is needed to have a decision?

[tenderlovemaking (Aaron Patterson)]

On Sat, Jul 09, 2011 at 01:04:08AM +0900, Antonio Terceiro wrote:

When there is both foo.rb and foo.so and a require 'foo' call is evaluated, Ruby 1.8 will load either foo.rb or foo.so depending on which order their directories are in $LOAD_PATH.

Ruby 1.8 will load the first foo.rb or foo.so it finds in the $LOAD_PATH.

Ruby 1.9 will first look for foo.rb in all directories, and only after that it will look for foo.so in all directories. This behaviour seems more consistent than the one in Ruby 1.8. It also matches the most common use case, which is foo.rb loading its sister foo.so that contains native-code implementations needed by foo.rb.

I have attached a test case that shows these different behaviours of Ruby 1.8 and Ruby 1.9.

I propose to make Ruby 1.8 work the same way as Ruby 1.9. If there is consensus about that, I can try to write a patch to backport the behaviour of Ruby 1.9 for Ruby 1.8.

Making this change would break 1.8 users that depend on this behavior.
Users may unknowingly depend on this behavior. Imagine someone's pain
that makes what seems like a safe upgrade (say 1.8.7-p1 to 1.8.7-p2),
and boom, my application stops working because of require behavior
change.

Contrast that with upgrading to 1.9, where the user knows some
behaviors of Ruby may have changed.

This isn't a bug, it's a behavior. Leave 1.8 as is. Let users upgrade to 1.9.

--
Aaron Patterson
http://tenderlovemaking.com/

[naruse (Yui NARUSE)]

• Status changed from Open to Rejected

Ruby 1.8 won't change any more except bugs.