Is json gem needed for Ruby 1.9?

[ma11hew28]

When I did gem install flickraw, it installed the gem json-1.5.1. For Ruby 1.9, require 'json' is supported out of the box, so is this necessary?

If not, please use something like gem "json", :platforms => [:ruby_18, :jruby, :mswin, :mingw_18] in the Gemfile.

I like to keep my gem list as clean as possible. :)

Ref: http://gembundler.com/man/gemfile.5.html

Thanks!

Matt

[hanklords]

Hello Matt,

Json dependency is not required for ruby 1.9 since it is in the stdlib. However there is no way to define a conditional dependency in the gemspec. I am considering removing it anyway, everybody should use 1.9 :)

[hanklords]

ca1af0b removes json dependency.

[felipeelias]

I'm still using ruby 1.8 and I ran into this issue today.

I'm quite sure bundler solve this issue with specific ruby dependencies as @mattdipasquale posted. You can check a example here

If you don't have plans to move to bundler, at least post a note in the docs for ruby 1.8 users, please :)

[hanklords]

I don't see how bundler solve this problem. If you need flickraw in your app you put something like gem "flickraw" in your Gemfile and bundler has no way, whatever I do with flickraw packaging, to know that it depends on json for ruby 1.8 only. It is just a limitation of rubygems.
Maybe I am missing something ?

I agree with you on the documentation. I will update this.

[felipeelias]

My bad, bundler only handles that in development.

The following code actually works:

if Gem::Version.new(RUBY_VERSION.dup) <= Gem::Version.new("1.8.7")
  s.add_dependency "json", ...
end

I've seen this code before, but instead of RUBY_VERSION it was Gem::VERSION. I'm not quite sure whether this is a good practice or not.

[hanklords]

This doesn't work : it is executed once on the machine building the gem (when you do gem build flickraw.gemspec).