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When using Vim, you can shell out via

:!<command_name>

Here's my problem.

I've got my current Ruby set to

ruby 1.9.3p194 (2012-04-20 revision 35410) [x86_64-darwin11.4.0]

This is the output from

ruby -v

in Terminal.app or simply the terminal.

Once I load up MacVim and type

:!ruby -v

I get

ruby 1.9.3p0 (2011-10-30 revision 33570) [x86_64-darwin11.2.0]

Where is Vim getting it's context from?

It does not appear to be honoring my settings specified in .zshrc. None of those settings appear to loaded or taking affect. I even created a function to source my dotfile via the command line

:!source ~/.zshrc

and to no avail!

I don't understand what the heck is going on here. I'm running into an issue because Vim is using Ruby 1.9.3p0, but RVM is set to a different Ruby. This is of course breaking any calls to Rails.

/usr/lib/ruby/1.9.1/rubygems.rb:314:in `bin_path': can't find gem rails ([">= 0"]) with executable rails (Gem::GemNotFoundException)
        from /usr/bin/rails:19:in `<main>'

shell returned 1

Can someone tell me how to override this?

Even my version of rails differs in Vim verses the terminal.

# Terminal output
which rails

# prints - /Users/adubb/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p194/bin/rails

# Vim/MacVim output
:!which rails

# prints - /usr/bin/rails
ib.
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A-Dubb
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  • How do you launch MacVim? When you do that using Finder.app (double-click, right-click > open with…) MacVim starts with a different environment than when you do `$ vim filename` in Terminal.app. Try the bundled `mvim` script: `$ mvim filename`. – romainl Jun 20 '12 at 05:40
  • I launch via the mvim command from the terminal as you mentioned. – A-Dubb Jun 20 '12 at 06:02
  • Please compare the output of `:!echo $PATH` in Vim and MacVim. – romainl Jun 20 '12 at 06:08
  • The output matches verbatim between the gui (Macvim) and cli (Vim). – A-Dubb Jun 20 '12 at 06:13
  • Appears to be similar to what this person faced on http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10077963/why-wont-macvim-always-use-ruby-1-9-3?rq=1, which is what you were getting at. Launching via mvim command versus open command. – A-Dubb Jun 20 '12 at 06:16
  • It may be a duplicate of this question. This person describes my exact scenario. Does not appear to have found a fix though. I think it's probably related to the combination of ruby an zsh but not sure at this point. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10553875/alter-path-in-vim-macvim-so-as-to-find-the-right-ruby-binary?rq=1 – A-Dubb Jun 20 '12 at 06:20
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    Yes, I've seen a lot of questions regarding the same issue. If you look at the list on the right you will see that a lot of people have similar problems. RVM may be a good idea but it seems to have quite a few limitations. Maybe [this plugin](https://github.com/tpope/vim-rvm) by Tim Pope will help you. – romainl Jun 20 '12 at 07:23
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    after some googling I got to this `So MacVim has a workaround for this: turn on 'Launch Vim processes in a login shell' in the preferences and it should work.` -> https://groups.google.com/d/msg/vim_mac/wSS_1zujSyo/eC_JOgI2gq4J – mpapis Jun 20 '12 at 20:05

1 Answers1

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Ok guys, all is well. Let me outline my steps to the solution. First of all, thanks so much to @romainl and @mpapis for your help. @romainl, the first thing I did was try the RVM plugin, but that didn't help. Then I took a look at the link that @mpapis posted where I learned about the hidden setting for MacVim. Well, I couldn't quite find this setting right away because when they mention preferences, they're not talking about the UI (typically mapped to the Command + , hotkey). They're talking about

:h macvim

I found this out after scanning the aforementioned post.

Once I got to the macvim help section, I did a search for the world "shell".

/shell

I found two settings under the 3. Preferences section.

==============================================================================
3. Preferences                  macvim-prefs macvim-preferences

Some settings are global to the MacVim application and would not make sense as
Vim options.  These settings are stored in the user defaults database and can
be accessed via the "MacVim.Preferences..." menu item.

                            macvim-user-defaults
Not all entries in the user defaults database are exposed via the preference
panel, usually because they should not be changed by the user under normal
circumstances.  These options can still be changed with the "defaults" command
by opening Terminal and typing

    defaults write org.vim.MacVim KEY VALUE

Check the man page on "defaults" for more information on this command as well
as general information regarding Mac OS X user defaults.

Here is a list of relevant dictionary entries:

...more entries
MMLoginShellArgument    login shell parameter [string]
MMLoginShellCommand     which shell to use to launch Vim [string]
...more entries

The MMLoginShellArgument and MMLoginShellCommand settings caught my eye. So I tried one of the settings via the

defaults write org.vim.MacVim KEY VALUE

syntax, but to no avail.

Then I googled "mmloginshell command macvim" which is one of the 2 settings I found from in the preferences section of the MacVim help.

The first link was a Stackoverflow question.

Once I got there, I came across this answer, which to me to this page on the MacVim Github wiki.

Once there, I followed Björn Winckler's (a core MacVim developer) steps on his troubleshooting guide; particularly the section titled "For zsh users".

It was here that I learned about these 2 files:

/etc/zshenv 
/etc/zprofile

One would expect that the contents of ~/.zshrc would be read/sourced when MacVim is loaded and zsh is the current shell, but this is not the case. Once I became aware that one of these 2 files (/etc/zshenv and /etc/zprofile) should contain my $PATH variable, I proceeded to migrate it from ~/.zshrc to each file individually in order to see if one would work. I initially targeted /etc/zshenv (while leaving /etc/zprofile intact), reloaded vim/MacVim, and everything worked flawlessly.

which rails

actually had the right output this time.

@romainl, when you initially inquired about whether or not my $PATH variables were in synch between Terminal.app and vim, I think I mistakenly thought they were equivalent. In later analyzing both sets of output, I discovered that they were indeed slightly different. That would have been a good indicator right away as to what the potential problem was. My mistake and thanks.

Bash users may want to consider what I suspect to be the equivalent of /etc/zshenv, which is outlined here in this post.

Ben Schmidt mentions that you should set your $PATH variable in "~/.profile not ~/.bashrc"; so something to take into consideration when troubleshooting.

I don't recall ever having this issue with bash while having my $PATH variable specified in ~/.bashrc, but who knows...this bit of information could come in handy at some point.

Thanks everyone and I hope this information helps troubled zsh users. Happy Ruby hacking.

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