How to stop the 'gem' utility from accessing my home directory?

Question

When I run

gem install <somegem>

command the gem utility tries to access my home directory. It contains some non-latin characters and installation fails because of that. For example:

E:\ruby\bin>gem install <somegem>
ERROR:  While executing gem ... (Errno::ENOENT)
    No such file or directory - C:\Documents and Settings\<user>

If I switch to another user account with a username containing ASCII characters only gem works fine.

Does anybody know how to tell gem NOT to check my home directory?

UPDATE: I tried to set up GEM_HOME as suggested below but it didn't help (still checks the user home directory)

Sergey 'm17' Kolosov · Accepted Answer · 2009-07-04T23:04:30.420

34

Just change HOMEDRIVE and HOMEPATH before running gem, and restore after (if needed).

I've changed my gem.bat like this:

@ECHO OFF
SET _HOMEDRIVE=%HOMEDRIVE%
SET _HOMEPATH=%HOMEPATH%
SET HOMEDRIVE=E:
SET HOMEPATH=/Dev/Ruby
IF NOT "%~f0" == "~f0" GOTO :WinNT
@"ruby.exe" "E:/Dev/Ruby/bin/gem" %1 %2 %3 %4 %5 %6 %7 %8 %9
GOTO :EOF
:WinNT
@"ruby.exe" "%~dpn0" %*
SET HOMEDRIVE=%_HOMEDRIVE%
SET HOMEPATH=%_HOMEPATH%

E:/Dev/Ruby/ is my Ruby path. It seems that HOMEPATH can be changed to anything else with ASCII only characters in path.

edited Jul 04 '09 at 23:04

answered Jul 04 '09 at 22:49

Sergey 'm17' Kolosov

656
4
8

18

Another, better way is to set HOME environment variable in “gem” script itself. Add following line to the beginning of “bin/gem”: ENV['HOME'] = "E:/Dev/Ruby" This fix works for all “gem” usages. As previously mentioned, this path can be changed, using ruby dir isn't required. – Sergey 'm17' Kolosov Aug 12 '09 at 14:03
1

Those script changes worked a treat with my Windows7. Thanks! – Falkayn Jan 24 '10 at 12:23
Thanks for this. Works in Vista well – Ivan Nevostruev Jan 28 '10 at 22:50
Works like a charm. They really should fix this though – D0cNet Oct 11 '10 at 17:37
Same problem ant setting HOME in gem script file is the only solution which works. Tahnks. – takacsot Jun 01 '11 at 07:57

score 1 · Answer 2 · edited May 13 '11 at 17:27

1

It's simpler to write:

@ECHO OFF
SET HOMEPATH=
IF NOT "%~f0" == "~f0" GOTO :WinNT
ECHO.This version of Ruby has not been built with support for Windows 95/98/Me.
GOTO :EOF
:WinNT
@"ruby.exe" "%~dpn0" %*

In this case you don't need to write your path and can replace or redistribute with file for new installations

edited May 13 '11 at 17:27

Adriano Carneiro

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answered May 12 '11 at 17:23

prijutme4ty

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konyak · Answer 3 · 2013-12-05T20:12:38.307

0

Restart the command prompt console as something might have jacked it up. I had the same issue, and restarting the console reset my environment.

edited Dec 05 '13 at 20:12

answered Dec 05 '13 at 19:02

konyak

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revised with explanation. – konyak Dec 05 '13 at 20:13

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered May 11 '09 at 19:48

0

Perhaps try changing the value of the GEM_HOME environment directory?

answered May 11 '09 at 19:48

ry.

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score 0 · Answer 5 · answered May 12 '09 at 11:28

0

If you GEM_PATH is set to your user directory, it will still access it. Try changing GEM_HOME and GEM_PATH.

answered May 12 '09 at 11:28

MickaelFM

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score 0 · Answer 6 · answered Jan 22 '12 at 16:53

0

just run postinstall file pi.bat or pi.sh this file is in ./RubyDevKit/postinstall.

this worked for me. it seems that installer of cygwin broke my settings.

answered Jan 22 '12 at 16:53

Alexander.Iljushkin

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How to stop the 'gem' utility from accessing my home directory?

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