LoadError: cannot load such file -- directory/file_name

Question

I have a file structure like

root
|--lib
   |--root.rb
   |--extensions
      |--strings.rb

I want to be able to use methods in string.rb in root.rb file.

So I added require 'extensions/strings' at the top of root.rb file.

But I get LoadError: cannot load such file -- extensions/strings.rb error.

How do I avoid this?

Answer 1

You can try the below:

require File.dirname(__FILE__) + "/extensions/strings"

Answer 2

Use require_relative if you are in Ruby 1.9 or later. In root.rb, write:

require_relative 'extensions/strings.rb'

Answer 3

I found the answer I am looking for here.

I used jandot's solution.

Dir[File.dirname(__FILE__) + '/extensions/*.rb'].each {|file| require file }

---

Edit after some testing,

For some reason, this doesn't throw any error message, but it doesn't seem to be loading the actual Ruby file.

I tried adding this to extensions/strings.rb

class Dog
  def self.bark
    puts "bark"
  end
end

And ran it on irb.

1.9.3-p0 :001 > require 'rhapsody'
 => true 
1.9.3-p0 :002 > Dog
NameError: uninitialized constant Dog
    from (irb):2
    from /Users/jasonkim/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.3-p0/bin/irb:16:in `<main>'

So it's not finding the Dog class in extensions/strings.rb for some reason.

---

Edit after reading a guid in rubygems.org

When I start irb, I had to go irb -Ilib -rextensions

The guide explains the situation this way

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.

Answer 4

require_relative '../lib/extensions/strings'

Works for me.