On Windows, can't we have different versions of Ruby and Rails (or Gemsets) just by setting the PATH?

Question

As I remember, on Windows, all the gems get installed relative to c:\ruby192, so can we actually have different paths such as

c:\ruby187_rails238
c:\ruby187_rails301
c:\ruby192_rails301
c:\ruby192_try

and therefore have 2 Ruby installations and 2 gemsets for each of them, and create more gemsets as needed this way. (just make sure to install a clean ruby into each new directory), and setting the PATH variable on Windows to change the Ruby and gemset to use.

Will that work flawlessly?

Answer 1

Hello,

That is actually not accurate. You can have one unique installation of each Ruby and manage it using Pik (similar to RVM for Windows).

It's current state do not handle gemsets as RVM, but you can still play with GEM_PATH and GEM_HOME environment variables to keep gems in isolation.

For example, I've set both variables to something different for each interpreter I have installed:

C:\Users\Luis>set GEM
GEM_HOME=C:\Users\Luis\.gem\ruby\x86-mingw32\1.8
GEM_PATH=C:\Users\Luis\.gem\ruby\x86-mingw32\1.8

You can do that setting one with the path you want SET GEM_HOME=C:\My\Gem\Path and then making the other clone it with SET GEM_PATH=%GEM_HOME%

Hope that helps.