Clean when running bundle install?

[XhmikosR]

Hello!

I'm experimenting to switching to the ruby/setup-ruby action. Everything looks good, --no-document is passed like I've been already doing myself.

One thing I noticed from quick look around the source code, is that --clean isn't being passed in bundler. I've been using this option so that the cache doesn't keep older, no longer needed gems and its size doesn't grow too fast.

Would it be possible to add an option for it (disabled by default)?

[eregon]

Do you mean using https://bundler.io/v1.5/bundle_clean.html?
I don't see a --clean option in https://bundler.io/v1.5/man/bundle-install.1.html

Maybe we should just no reuse the cache if the Gemfile.lock (checked in or generated from Gemfile) changes? (that way, we never have to deal with some old or extra files in the cache)
Trade-off is that might cause e.g. recompiling C extensions when otherwise it wouldn't be needed (if the version of those C extensions doesn't change).
OTOH GitHub caches are evicted if not accessed within the last week: https://github.com/actions/cache#cache-limits
So having to recompile C extensions every now and then is kind of expected.

Currently it indeed keeps the older gems:

setup-ruby/index.js

Lines 252 to 253 in 21351ec

	// If only Gemfile.lock changes we can reuse part of the cache (but it will keep old gem versions in the cache)
	const restoreKeys = [`${baseKey}-`]

I'm a bit wary of using commands/flags of Bundler that are not frequently used as they are more likely to have some bugs, and make the whole process more complicated and harder to test.

[slonopotamus]

https://bundler.io/man/bundle-install.1.html
This page clearly says that there is --clean flag. Maybe it didn't exist before bundler 2.0? Anyway, there must be some way to trim cache size. Otherwise, it will grow infinitely up to the point when using cache will become slower than not using it. If older bundler doesn't have --clean, you can execute bundle clean --force separately before storing cache.

[XhmikosR]

Both bundler 1.17.3 and 2.1.4 seem to have the clean flag; I've been using it since GitHub Actions first launched last year.

I'd say the least intrusive approach would be to add an option to enable the clean flag, and if time shows more people need this, it could be enabled by default.

[slonopotamus]

Hmm...

$ bundle install --clean
[DEPRECATED] The `--clean` flag is deprecated because it relies on being remembered across bundler invocations, which bundler will no longer do in future versions. Instead please use `bundle config set clean 'true'`, and stop using this flag

I am using

$ bundle --version
Bundler version 2.1.4

[XhmikosR]

https://github.com/twbs/blog/blob/960cbe0d879a52c7539b714f88b8683dfeb78cb9/.github/workflows/ci.yml#L23

[eregon]

I'll try to take a look at this, and make sure it works as expected, both Bundler 1 and 2. No need for an option, as long as it's safe to do.
bundle config --local set clean true would set it for all other calls to Bundler, which seems unfortunate, so probably worth trying the explicit command instead, in the case we reuse a cache but the resolved Gemfile.lock changes.

[eregon]

bundle clean needs to be done after bundle install, otherwise:

$ bundle clean
Could not find json-2.1.0 in any of the sources

So the order is:

bundle lock if no Gemfile.lock
bundle install
bundle clean if reusing an existing cache and Gemfile.lock changed

[XhmikosR]

Just wondering, can't you always set bundler's clean option to true?

[eregon]

That would affect potentially other bundle ... commands by the user after, so it seems undesirable.
I have a fix, testing it now.

[XhmikosR]

Hence why I initially suggested an option which would set bundler's clean config option to true if set :)

Probably my use case is a pretty simple one, but never had an issue with clean.

Anyway, you should know better :)

[eregon]

Fixed in https://github.com/ruby/setup-ruby/releases/tag/v1.53.0, thanks for reporting the issue.