Patching Rubies

As a side effect of RVM it is very easy to test patches with many versions of ruby.

Installing specific rubies with custom ruby source patches

$ rvm install 2.1.1 --patch /path/to/awesome.patch

Alternatively you can specify more than one patch, they are applied in the order given.

$ rvm install 2.1.1 --patch /path/to/awesome.patch,/path/to/another.patch

Starting with RVM 1.17 it is also possible to specify an URL to a patch

$ rvm install 2.1.1 --patch https://url.to.your/fancy.patch

It is also possible to specially name a patched ruby (see Named Rubies for more details).

$ rvm install 2.1.1-named --patch /path/to/weird.patch

Contributing patches

Testing patches

Functionality improvements

Test ruby before patching

$ rvm install 2.1.1
$ ruby your_test.rb #or
$ ruby -e "puts 'your one line test'"

Uninstall previous version before installing with patch

$ rvm remove 2.1.1

Test ruby after patching

$ rvm install 2.1.1 --patch /path/to/awesome.patch
$ ruby your_test.rb #or
$ ruby -e "puts 'your one line test'"

Compilation errors

Test ruby after patching

$ rvm install 2.1.1 --patch /path/to/compilation.patch
$ ruby -v

Contributing patches

If your patch fixes important issues on old branches like 2.0.0 it can be contributed to RVM. Open a pull request at Github repository.

It might appear that your patch is to awesome for everybody and you should keep it as your own vendor extension vendor/ruby-patches/my-awesome.patch , and always use --patch option.

To start you need to fork rvm/rvm clone your fork to disk, and add your patch to right directory like: patches/ruby/2.0.0/

Install your version of RVM into system

Backup original RVM installation

$ mv $HOME/.rvm $HOME/.rvm-backup

Install extended RVM (from your checked out fork directory)

$ ./install

Install ruby which should be automatically patched, test as needed

$ rvm install 2.1.1
$ ruby -v #or
$ ruby your_test.rb #or
$ ruby -e "puts 'your one line test'"

remove test rvm installation, restore backup

$ rm -rf $HOME/.rvm
$ mv $HOME/.rvm-backup $HOME/.rvm

When the code is ready and tested:

Commit your code, don't miss a thing.
push changes to github.
order a pull request