Practical Ruby Gems is a comprehensive guide to utilizing and creating Ruby Gemsready-made Ruby code modules that can be easily added to Ruby and Rails projects. This book is ideal for Ruby programmers as well as web developers who use Rails and wish to extend the functionality of their projects.
You'll get a prime selection of 34 of the best and most useful Gems, which makes up the core of this book. Each of these also comes complete with actual use cases and code examples that you can use immediately in your own projects.
Practical Ruby Gems
David Berube
Practical Ruby Gems Copyright © 2007 by David Berube All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner and the publisher. ISBN-13 (pbk): 978-1-59059-811-5 ISBN-10 (pbk): 1-59059-811-3 Printed and bound in the United States of America 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Trademarked names may appear in this book. Rather than use a trademark symbol with every occurrence of a trademarked name, we use the names only in an editorial fashion and to the benefit of the trademark owner, with no intention of infringement of the trademark. Lead Editor: Jason Gilmore Technical Reviewer: Yan Pritzker Editorial Board: Steve Anglin, Ewan Buckingham, Gary Cornell, Jason Gilmore, Jonathan Gennick, Jonathan Hassell, James Huddleston, Chris Mills, Matthew Moodie, Jeff Pepper, Paul Sarknas, Dominic Shakeshaft, Jim Sumser, Matt Wade Project Manager: Richard Dal Porto Copy Edit Manager: Nicole Flores Copy Editor: Candace English Assistant Production Director: Kari Brooks-Copony Production Editor: Kelly Winquist Compositor: Diana Van Winkle, Van Winkle Design Proofreader: Liz Welch Indexer: Julie Grady Cover Designer: Kurt Krames Manufacturing Director: Tom Debolski Distributed to the book trade worldwide by Springer-Verlag New York, Inc., 233 Spring Street, 6th Floor, New York, NY 10013. Phone 1-800-SPRINGER, fax 201-348-4505, e-mail
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[email protected], or visit http://www.apress.com. The information in this book is distributed on an “as is” basis, without warranty. Although every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this work, neither the author(s) nor Apress shall have any liability to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by the information contained in this work. The source code for this book is available to readers at http://www.apress.com in the Source Code/ Download section.
Dedicated to my parents
Contents at a Glance About the Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv
PART 1 ■CHAPTER ■CHAPTER ■CHAPTER ■CHAPTER
PART 2 ■CHAPTER ■CHAPTER ■CHAPTER ■CHAPTER ■CHAPTER ■CHAPTER ■CHAPTER ■CHAPTER ■CHAPTER ■CHAPTER ■CHAPTER ■CHAPTER ■CHAPTER ■CHAPTER ■CHAPTER ■CHAPTER ■CHAPTER ■CHAPTER iv
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What Is RubyGems? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Ins