khenriks/brew-gem

Install gems as homebrew formulas

brew-gem -- install gems as homebrew formulas

brew gem allows you to install any rubygem as a homebrew formula.

It works by generating a stub formula for homebrew, which looks something like this:

class Ronn < Formula
  def initialize(*args)
    @name = "ronn"
    @version = "0.7.3"
    super
  end

  def install
    system "gem", "install", name, "--version", version, "--install-dir", prefix
  end
end

This formula installs and unpacks all the dependencies under the Cellar path. So the package is completely self contained.

Install

brew install brew-gem

Usage

brew gem heroku

Additionally, you may declare additional dependent gems that are specifically required by the original gem. For example, let's say you wanted to install capistrano and you need the capistrano-ext gem as well.

brew gem capistrano capistrano-ext

Philosophy

This is not for installing development libraries, but for standalone binary tools that you want system wide.