Can't create a virginal environment in ruby 2

[zenspider]

Brand spankin' new install of ruby.

10043 % rm -rf xxx; ruby -v; GEM_HOME=xxx GEM_PATH=xxx RUBYOPT=--disable-gems gem list
ruby 2.1.1p76 (2014-02-24 revision 45161) [x86_64-darwin13.0]

*** LOCAL GEMS ***

bigdecimal (1.2.4)
io-console (0.4.2)
json (1.8.1)
minitest (4.7.5)
psych (2.0.3)
rake (10.1.0)
rdoc (4.1.0)
test-unit (2.1.1.0)

This is Not Good™.

[zzak]

We would be lying if we didn't report the default gems that are installed with Ruby

[zenspider]

No... we'd be using the environment that the user told rubygems to use. That's the reason why those environment variables exist in the first place. The fact that you can't test something in isolation is a problem, not a feature.

[JezC]

... and it's worserer. I do not have Ruby 2.0.0 installed any more. I do have Ruby 2.1.1 and 2.1.2.
I now have a default BigDecimal 1.2.4 installed. There is an updated BigDecimal 1.2.5. If I "gem cleanup bigdecimal", I lose the new one, not the old one. The new one is backported to Ruby 2.0.0 and Ruby 2.1.x. It fixes a crashing issue. Why am I nailed to a crashing version that supports a Ruby version that I don't even have any more? I am lost, dazed and confused as to why you'd do this to me :)

And I have a rake at 10.1.0 and at 10.3.2. Why am I forced to retain rake at 10.1.0? gem cleanup rake says "Clean Up Complete". gem uninstall rake -v 10.1.0 says "cannot be uninstalled because it is a default gem". A default for... what purpose?

Similarly I have outdated versions of minitest (now 5.4.0, default is 4.7.5), rdoc (now 4.1.1, was 4.1.0) and test-unit (now 3.0.1, default 2.1.2.0), where the recent versions are lost in a cleanup, not the ancient originals.

If there are defaults tied to ruby versions... shouldn't they be linked in some way to the ruby versions? I don't want to be nailed to some long obsoleted revision, just because that was a default for a version of a ruby I no longer use. Or have I misunderstood?

[zenspider]

Why am I nailed to a crashing version that supports a Ruby version that I don't even have any more?

@JezC I think if you look with gem list -d bigdecimal you'll see that the version you're picking up is for the version of ruby you're using.

As for the rest of it? Yeah. It's super stupid. It shouldn't be this way and we're stuck with it until ruby 2.1 afaict.

I released rubygems-cleanroom to address some of this. Being a gem plugin, it really only affects other gem command-line commands, but if you really want to, you can require rubygems/cleanroom in your code to obliterate the default gems

[krainboltgreene]

Not quite sure how to handle this problem. On the one hand gem list should report all gems it knows about and --disable-gems (as documented) only stops Ruby from loading gems on start. These are two different interactions.

Perhaps this calls for a new flag/env on rubygems cli to tell you if something is loaded or not?

[bronzdoc]

I'm going to close this because it is to old, but if this problem is still of your interest feel free to let us know with a new issue!”

[zenspider]

Super old and super ignored. This is still a problem and shouldn't have been closed just for age.