2 gems need different versions of the same dependency

Question

Using Rails 3, I\'m trying to figure out what I think should be pretty straightforward...

I have 2 gems that require 2 different versions of the same gem dependency.

Answer 1

If you're in a situation where the gems are being used in different projects or at least not at the exact same time you can use RVM's gemset feature as a workaround. I recently had a gem incompatibility similar to yours and that's what I used.

If you have RVM installed, do this:

rvm gemset create gemset_name_here
rvm gemset use gemset_name_here

So what you're doing is creating a gem environment that's totally fresh and from scratch while still being able to revert back to the gems you were working with before at any time. The first line creates a new gemset and the second line tells RVM to start using it.

At this point you'll need to run bundle install or rake or whatever you're using to get the gems you need but this should take care of the problem.

So when you're using gem 1 with dependency 1 you use the gemset that has the required version. Then when you're using gem 2 with dependency 2 you switch to the gemset that has that.

Now, if both gems are part of one larger project this will not be feasible and you'll most likely need to edit the source to of the gem to run the new version of the dependency like @BaroqueBobcat said. In a lot of cases this is actually pretty easy. Ruby developers tend to be very awesome about making their code easy to pick up on.