(Rails) Reloading "lib" files without having to restart server...? [duplicate]

Question

Is there any way in Rails to have the ENV reload "lib" files without having to restart the server? I'm working with some classes that I have inside a module in "lib". However, in order to see my changes I must restart the server each time. I'm guessing this is the way Rails is intended to work, but it is quite tedious when developing library files and/or plugins.

Surely I'm going about this wrong....?

Best

EDIT 1

Neither answer 1 nor 2 worked for me. Instead I was presented with errors from the controllers that made use of the Module. FYI, I have 3 files in my "lib/xmlitems" directory. I attempted to load that subdirectory then I referenced the single file that "requires" all other files. Am I to individually load all files?

Buhrstone

Looking at the duplicate target, none of the answers are particularly good. As duplicates require the question to be answered in the target, I'm voting to re-open. – Ruse

Answer 1

For Rails 3 and Rails 4.0, vary the instructions given in @txwikinger's answer. In your environments/development.rb file, add the lines:

ActiveSupport::Dependencies.autoload_paths << File::join( Rails.root, 'lib')
ActiveSupport::Dependencies.explicitly_unloadable_constants << '<my modules in lib>'

Underbelly

When I did this, I was using a module called ::Utils. When I ran my code, it gave me an error, uninitialized constant ActionView::CompiledTemplates::Utils. – Haplography

Hm. Could you put your code on pastie.org and share a link? – Underbelly

Turns out that was my own fault, although I thought I had isolated it using a git diff. Sorry JellicleCat, unfortunately Stackoverflow locked in my -1. :( I still can't verify your answer though. – Haplography

Worked great, though I removed the brackets from the String that's appended to 'explicitly_unloadable_constants' – Alicealicea

This allows you to reload classes in the lib directory as well, confirmed for rails 4. Thanks! – Aruwimi

Thank you! I've spent the last four hours scouring SO and google, trying so many different possibilities. Probably spent more time than I'll save with this working, but I persevered on principle -- autoreloading files between requests should be doable and easy! Your answer accomplishes just that on 3.2.13. Thanks again. – Milklivered

Note that explicitly_unloadable_constants array is an array of constants (class names) but not file names. And one more trouble: on second reload I got an exception: Circular dependency detected while autoloading constant MyClass. – Salesroom

txwikinger's answer has since been deleted – Ruse

Glad I finally found this, works under Rails 4.2.10.... but what it the purpose for explicitly_unloadable_constants << 'MyModuleName' ? – Showiness

Answer 2

module ActsAsReloadable
  def self.included(base)
    ActiveSupport::Dependencies.explicitly_unloadable_constants << base.name if Rails.env == 'development'
  end
end

To use it, simply include ActsAsReloadable in your lib/* files and add config.autoload_paths += %W(#{config.root}/lib) in config/application.rb

Transmigrant

Answer 3

There's an easier way: just add

config.reload_plugins = true

to development.rb

Jacks

This didn't work for me. – Haplography