How to get Sinatra to auto-reload the file after each change?

Question

I am using

# my_app.rb
load 'index.rb'

and start the sever like this

ruby my_app.rb

but it never reload any changes I made in index page.
Did I miss anything here?

dbr · Accepted Answer · 2014-02-12T12:19:41.943

213

See the Sinatra FAQ,

"How do I make my Sinatra app reload on changes?"

First off, in-process code reloading in Ruby is hard and having a solution that works for every scenario is technically impossible.

Which is why we recommend you to do out-of-process reloading.

First you need to install rerun if you haven’t already:
 $ gem install rerun
Now if you start your Sinatra app like this:
$ ruby app.rb
All you have to do for reloading is instead do this:
$ rerun 'ruby app.rb'
If you are for instance using rackup, instead do the following:

$ rerun 'rackup'

You get the idea.

If you still want in-process reloading, check out Sinatra::Reloader.

edited Feb 12 '14 at 12:19

answered Aug 08 '09 at 10:31

dbr

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shotgun requires a minimal config.ru. If you don't have one already, create it and put "require './my_app'" (where my_app.rb is your ruby app) in it and you'll be set. – Jeffrey Martinez Jan 12 '14 at 09:10
Small addition to for `rerun`. You are not limited with default options i.e. `rerun 'rackup'`. It's possible to run any server on any port. Here is example how to run Puma on port number 5678 — `rerun 'rackup -s puma -p 5678 app/sinatra/config.ru'` – sashaegorov Oct 28 '15 at 17:26

Nakilon · Answer 2 · 2019-09-24T14:14:38.607

45

gem install sinatra-reloader

require 'sinatra'
require 'sinatra/reloader'

Note: it will reload only sinatra handlers (and, maybe some sinatra server configuration commands), but not custom files, which you have to reload manually.

UPD after 9 years: seems like it is already possible to reload other files using also_reload, dont_reload and after_reload -- https://github.com/sinatra/sinatra/pull/1150

edited Sep 24 '19 at 14:14

answered Oct 20 '10 at 16:49

Nakilon

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Hey @Nakilon, how would I go about re-loading such files manually? I am doing `require "./my-file"` without success – kristianlm Sep 30 '11 at 21:23
@kristianlm, `require` doesn't reload file, if it already was required. You `load` instead. – Nakilon Oct 01 '11 at 10:59
you are right. I have to re-save my `server.rb`, though, to get it to reload my external file. It doesn't check my external file alone, so I have to re-save my `sever.rb` every time I make a change to my external file. [shotgun](http://rubygems.org/gems/shotgun) seems to work better in this regard, but it also seems to re-load the database sessions. – kristianlm Oct 05 '11 at 12:44
9

Use the also_reload method to specify which files to reload: `configure :development do |c| require 'sinatra/reloader' c.also_reload "./lib/*.rb" c.also_reload "./controllers/*.rb" c.also_reload "./init/*.rb" end` – Opptatt Jobber Apr 27 '13 at 16:25

score 14 · Answer 3 · answered Jan 24 '13 at 04:52

14

You can use the rerun gem.

gem install rerun
rerun 'ruby app.rb'

OR if you are using rackup

rerun 'rackup'

answered Jan 24 '13 at 04:52

zeronone

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score 11 · Answer 4 · answered Sep 09 '11 at 19:54

gem install sinatra-reloader

require 'sinatra/base'
require "sinatra/reloader"

class MyApp < Sinatra::Base
  register Sinatra::Reloader

  get '/' do
    "Hello Testing1!"
  end
end

You may want to set environment variable to development and conditionally load the gem.

score 6 · Answer 5 · answered Nov 18 '11 at 18:13

6

When you run the application with Passenger Standalone, just create a tmp/always_restart file:

$ touch tmp/always_restart.txt

See Passenger documentation for more info.

answered Nov 18 '11 at 18:13

karmi

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score 5 · Answer 6 · answered Sep 30 '14 at 22:25

5

I like the Shotgun gem. If you're using a modular Sinatra app and have a config.ru file it's easy to run.

shotgun config.ru

Check the gem out here. It's fairly straight forward and no configuration needed.

answered Sep 30 '14 at 22:25

Shotgun is nice but isn't compatible with ruby 3+. – Edward Anderson Sep 24 '22 at 14:02

score 4 · Answer 7 · answered Sep 23 '14 at 14:14

4

On Windows, I am using my restart gem for this:

restart ruby my_app.rb

or, with rackup:

restart rackup

See here for more info, hope you find it useful.

answered Sep 23 '14 at 14:14

Vais Salikhov

61
1

the documentation states that it doesn't work on windows, i tried and it loads sinatra but doesn't reload on chenges – peter Apr 20 '15 at 09:10

score 1 · Answer 8 · answered Apr 24 '14 at 17:25

You could use guard-rack. Lifted from an article at dblock.org:

Add this to your Gemfile:

group :development do
  gem "guard"
  gem "guard-bundler"
  gem "guard-rack"
end

Then, create a Guardfile at the root of your project with this content:

guard 'bundler' do
  watch('Gemfile')
end

guard 'rack' do
  watch('Gemfile.lock')
  watch(%r{^(config|app|api)/.*})
end

Lastly, run Guard, like so: bundle exec guard, and rackup will reload every time.

score 0 · Answer 9 · answered Oct 14 '17 at 11:21

0

If you only change your templates sinatra will always rerender them if you set your environment to development:

ruby app.rb -e development

answered Oct 14 '17 at 11:21

three

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How to get Sinatra to auto-reload the file after each change?

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