Update just one gem with bundler

Question

I use bundler to manage dependencies in my rails app, and I have a gem hosted in a git repository included as followed:

gem 'gem-name', :git => 'path/to/my/gem.git'

To update this gem, I execute bundle update but it also updates all the gem mentioned in Gemfile. So what is the command to update just one specific gem?

score 466 · Accepted Answer · edited Jul 30 '21 at 17:58

466

Here you can find a good explanation on the difference between

Update both gem and dependencies:

bundle update gem-name

or

Update exclusively the gem:

bundle update --source gem-name

along with some nice examples of possible side-effects.

Update

As @Tim's answer says, as of Bundler 1.14 the officially-supported way to this is with bundle update --conservative gem-name.

edited Jul 30 '21 at 17:58

anothermh

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answered Apr 24 '14 at 12:11

mseebacher

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Be careful, "updating gem and dependencies" means updating rails itself if it is a dependency and you probably don't want that. *--source* will only update the gem specified as parameter. So it is better in most situations. – tozlu Aug 31 '15 at 17:06
how to specify the version? – Oshan Wisumperuma Aug 16 '19 at 11:36
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@OshanWisumperuma Specify the version in Gemfile or possibly Gemfile.lock prior to running these bundle commands – Harry Wood Sep 10 '19 at 22:16

score 199 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 06 '13 at 11:35

199

The way to do this is to run the following command:

bundle update --source gem-name

answered Mar 06 '13 at 11:35

dukz

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This is exactly what I needed, I have a private gem and only needs to update the gem itself without updating the dependencies after I made some changes to the private gem. – I'm a frog dragon Jun 05 '13 at 01:47

score 62 · Answer 3 · answered Apr 21 '17 at 19:06

62

It appears that with newer versions of bundler (>= 1.14) it's:

bundle update --conservative gem-name

answered Apr 21 '17 at 19:06

Tim

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note: this command will update one gem without dependencies of it – mmike Jun 04 '18 at 11:07
As with the basic non-conservative `update`, multiple gem names can be specified. This is useful when you want to update a specific subtree of transitive dependencies. – Jared Beck Feb 01 '23 at 23:29

score 24 · Answer 4 · answered Jun 29 '12 at 13:59

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You simply need to specify the gem name on the command line:

bundle update gem-name

answered Jun 29 '12 at 13:59

Brandan

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Strange. That's what `bundle help update` says to do. Which version of bundler are you using? – Brandan Jun 29 '12 at 14:44
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`bundle update gem-name` will update the gem and "any of its dependencies". – yaka Apr 19 '13 at 21:16

score 8 · Answer 5 · answered Jun 09 '17 at 08:30

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bundle update gem-name [--major|--patch|--minor]

This also works for dependencies.

answered Jun 09 '17 at 08:30

Linus

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Is there a way to update it to a specific version? The `--major`, `--minor`, and `--patch` flags automatically upgrade it to the latest possible version. – user2490003 Nov 21 '19 at 17:38
You can specify a specific version in the Gemfile, i.e. 'x.y.z' rather than '~> x.y.z' – Jeremy Meyer Jul 08 '22 at 00:50

score 2 · Answer 6 · answered Jun 13 '16 at 20:12

I've used bundle update --source myself for a long time but there are scenarios where it doesn't work. Luckily, there's a gem called bundler-patch which has the goal of fixing this shortcoming.

I also wrote a short blog post about how to use bundler-patch and why bundle update --source doesn't work consistently. Also, be sure to check out a post by chrismo that explains in great detail what the --source option does.

score 0 · Answer 7 · answered Sep 08 '17 at 10:51

bundler update --source gem-name will update the revision hash in Gemfile.lock which you can compare with the last commit hash of that git branch (master by default).

GIT remote: git@github.com:organization/repo-name.git revision: c810f4a29547b60ca8106b7a6b9a9532c392c954

can be found at github.com/organization/repo-name/commits/c810f4a2 (I used shorthand 8 character commit hash for the url)

score 0 · Answer 8 · answered Sep 18 '20 at 15:44

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If you want to update a single gem to a specific version:

change the version of the gem in the Gemfile
bundle update

> ruby -v
ruby 2.6.5p114 (2019-10-01 revision 67812) [x86_64-darwin19]
> gem -v
3.0.3
> bundle -v
Bundler version 2.1.4

answered Sep 18 '20 at 15:44

spyle

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Update just one gem with bundler

8 Answers8

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