How to make --no-ri --no-rdoc the default for gem install?

Asked 4/9, 2009 at 21:48 Answered 8/4, 2023 at 14:24

1096

I don't use the RI or RDoc output from the gems I install in my machine or in the servers I handle (I use other means of documentation).

Every gem I install installs RI and RDoc documentation by default, because I forget to set --no-ri --no-rdoc.

Is there a way to make those two flags the default?

Ideograph answered 4/9, 2009 at 21:48 Comment(3)

It's not a good idea though. I recently needed to write code on the road and when I launched gem server I remembered that I had these in my $HOME/.gemrc and really killed me... Google isn't always there. – Overslaugh 13/1, 2014 at 0:16

Depends on the context. It's a great idea if you can tether or you're doing this on a server that doesn't need gem documentation. – Shillelagh 28/5, 2014 at 13:50

with pry one can use show-source as an alternative to generated docs. It will show inline comments, which are generally the same content as the ri/rdoc anyway. – Gouty 11/5, 2016 at 20:59

1303

You just add the following line to your local ~/.gemrc file (it is in your home folder):

gem: --no-document

echo 'gem: --no-document' >> ~/.gemrc

or you can add this line to the global gemrc config file.

Here is how to find it (in Linux):

strace gem source 2>&1 | grep gemrc

The --no-document option is documented in the RubyGems CLI Reference.

Disillusion answered 6/9, 2009 at 16:10 Comment(11)

Anyway to make this a system wide default without editing /etc/skel and every user's home directory? – Hamitic 13/1, 2011 at 3:43

/etc/gemrc didn't work for me, but .gemrc did. I wonder if it's rvm specific that it doesn't read the system gemrc? – Nasty 4/9, 2011 at 7:54

Yea I'm using RVM and /etc/gemrc doesn't work for me either. – Harrisharrisburg 21/9, 2011 at 8:27

I think opinion was split on the default so it was never changed. – Harrisharrisburg 21/9, 2011 at 8:28

@gdelfino's answer is the least obtrusive – Heptarchy 15/5, 2012 at 0:59

deprecated - please see my answer – Dagenham 28/6, 2013 at 14:38

Use ruby -e "require 'etc';puts Etc.sysconfdir" to determine the path to your gemrc config file. – Zahn 15/11, 2013 at 16:26

If ruby was compiled with a prefix like --prefix=/opt/ruby, then the config file path will be /opt/ruby/etc/gemrc (confirmed with ruby 2.3.1) – Trioxide 16/6, 2016 at 10:57

I didn't have any gemrc but my system was quite happy to use a brand new one at ~/.gemrc. – Sixtasixteen 5/10, 2017 at 22:9

On FreeBSD, truss gem source 2>&1 | grep gemrc | awk -F '"' '{print $2}' is the magic incantation to give you the relevant paths directly. – Flue 10/3, 2019 at 16:13

To find your gemrc file, run gem env and find the displayed SYSTEM CONFIGURATION DIRECTORY output field. Create or edit the gemrc file in that directory. – Impious 27/8, 2019 at 10:38

507

From RVM’s documentation:

Just add this line to your ~/.gemrc or /etc/gemrc:

gem: --no-document

Note: The original answer was:

install: --no-rdoc --no-ri 
update: --no-rdoc --no-ri

This is no longer valid; the RVM docs have since been updated, thus the current answer to only include the gem directive is the correct one.

Excurved answered 5/10, 2011 at 13:44 Comment(8)

Since RubyGems version 2.0.0preview2, you can instead use --no-document or --document=rdoc for just rdoc. – Erection 9/4, 2013 at 8:6

/etc/gemrc doesn't seem to work in practice, and the documentation agrees with it. – Plangent 17/6, 2013 at 17:40

/etc/gemrc will work for RVMs binary rubies because they use --sysconfdir=/etc you could build your rubies with it too like this: rvm install 2.0.0 -C --sysconfdir=/etc to get /etc/gemrc working for compiled rubies, otherwise use $MY_RUBY_HOME/gemrc. – Dale 20/6, 2013 at 4:53

I disagree with @mpapis's edit on Jun 20, 2013. He totally changed this answer and there were lots of people that voted for it because they thought it was better than the accepted answer. The person who posted this answer explicitly wrote that they do not want to add those two options to every gem command because it breaks some commands. Before @Dale totally changed the answer, the code in the answer was: install: --no-rdoc --no-ri\nupdate: --no-rdoc --no-ri @mpapis, why did you change the RVM documentation and also change this answer? – Recto 27/6, 2013 at 17:12

because it is true, there is no reason to keep two separate lines, keeping track of multi project compatibility is tricky - and the RVM docs get sometimes updated when we find something is off - like in this case, it is not true that rubygems would behave wrong, it's all fine to use gem: instead of two separate entries. – Dale 27/6, 2013 at 19:36

RVM docs say to use rvm_gem_options in ~/.rvmrc ie. to disable docs export rvm_gem_options="--nodocument" or to enable docs export rvm_gem_options="--document rdoc,ri" – Sewn 27/7, 2013 at 18:48

Use ruby -e "require 'etc';puts Etc.sysconfdir" to determine the path to your gemrc config file. – Zahn 15/11, 2013 at 16:27

This one is deprecated see guides.rubygems.org/command-reference/#gem-install – Exsanguine 11/2, 2015 at 9:45

190

Note that --no-ri and --no-rdoc have been deprecated according to the new guides. The recommended way is to use --no-document in ~/.gemrc or /etc/gemrc.

install: --no-document
update: --no-document

gem: --no-document

Dagenham answered 19/6, 2013 at 21:2 Comment(0)

104

On Linux (and probably Mac):

echo 'gem: --no-document' >> ~/.gemrc

This one-liner used to be in comments here, but somehow disappeared.

Whose answered 4/9, 2009 at 21:49 Comment(3)

You should use >> in case the user already has a ~/.gemrc. – Nobel 24/2, 2013 at 22:56

Is there a difference between this echo 'gem: --no-doc --no-ri' >> ~/.gemrc and the one you wrote or both have same effect? – Slue 24/1, 2018 at 17:49

@Lykos --no-doc --no-ri is deprecated (see guides.rubygems.org/command-reference/#gem_install for options) – Whose 25/1, 2018 at 18:39

/home/{user}/.gemrc

---
:update_sources: true
:sources:
- https;//rubygems.org
- https://gems.rubyforge.org/
- https://gems.github.com
:benchmark: false
:bulk_threshold: 1000
:backtrace: false
:verbose: true
gem: --no-ri --no-rdoc

http://webonrails.com/2008/12/03/skiping-installation-of-ri-and-rdoc-documentation-while-installing-gems/

Hussein answered 18/9, 2010 at 7:6 Comment(6)

Thanks for this example, perfect to help me strip out the embedded Ruby that I copied & pasted at some point and then resulted in psych errors while installing RubyGems 1.8.10 under Ruby 1.9.2. – Merc 3/9, 2011 at 15:2

Please don't post "first result on Google" replies. The first result on Google now shows your reply, self-proving why you shouldn't do this. Thanks, of course, for your answer. – Nasty 4/9, 2011 at 7:52

Actually, "first result on Google" shows: ""first result on Google" shows: ""first result on Google" shows: ""... ERROR: Stack Overflow. – Flatter 22/9, 2011 at 6:53

I have to add my thanks for steve's comment (above). I was pulling my hair out as to why I could not install the latest RubyGems. Turns out I had a malformed .gemrc file as well. I kept getting this error: ../.rbenv/versions/1.9.2-p290/lib/ruby/1.9.1/psych.rb:148:in `parse': couldn't parse YAML at line 2 column 10 (Psych::SyntaxError) – Tenrec 4/11, 2011 at 1:35

and if you type "google" into google you'll break the internet – Fong 14/6, 2021 at 1:33

--- ` :update_sources: true ` ` :sources: ` - rubygems.org #- gems.rubyforge.org #- gems.github.com :benchmark: false` :bulk_threshold: 1000 ` :backtrace: false ` :verbose: true` ` gem: --no-document` ` With https :) – Klotz 8/4, 2023 at 14:16

On Windows XP the path to the .gemrc file is

c:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\gemrc

and this file is not created by default, you should create it yourself.

Mailer answered 28/6, 2010 at 19:15 Comment(2)

Under Windows 7 it's C:\ProgramData\gemrc – Mailer 5/8, 2010 at 12:33

the win7 location works for windows 200. Also make sure you have "Hide extensions for known file types" off it wont pick up gemrc.txt.... facepalm – Guib 27/3, 2012 at 17:11

A oneliner for the windows 7 users:

(echo install: --no-document && echo update: --no-document) >> c:\ProgramData\gemrc

Mummery answered 12/9, 2013 at 5:28 Comment(0)

You can specify default options using the .gemrc configuration file.

Documentation about gem configuration file

Platter answered 5/9, 2009 at 0:23 Comment(0)

As mentioned above, put gem: --no-document in your gem file. However, the system-wide gemrc will not always necessarily go into /etc/gemrc. If you are using RVM, or you have Ruby installed under /usr/local/bin, it needs to go in a different location. You can find this location by running irb and typing...

require 'rubygems'
Gem::ConfigFile::SYSTEM_WIDE_CONFIG_FILE

See the original post on this over here.

Junina answered 6/4, 2014 at 1:36 Comment(1)

Oneliner: ruby -rrubygems -e'puts Gem::ConfigFile::SYSTEM_WIDE_CONFIG_FILE' – Champion 21/2, 2019 at 13:47

Step by steps:

To create/edit the .gemrc file from the terminal:

vi  ~/.gemrc

You will open a editor called vi. paste in:

gem: --no-ri --no-rdoc

click 'esc'-button.

type in:

:exit

You can check if everything is correct with this command:

sudo /Applications/TextEdit.app/Contents/MacOS/TextEdit ~/.gemrc

Walkthrough answered 29/12, 2011 at 21:50 Comment(3)

To clarify, that last command is OS X specific. It opens the ~/.gemrc file in a texteditor. – Wampum 16/1, 2012 at 18:18

~ is representation for home directory. (the following stuff in caps are environment variables) Order of checking directories for .gemrc: 1. Use HOME if it is defined. 2. Use USERPROFILE if it is defined. 3. Use HOMEDRIVE and HOMEPATH together if they are defined. 4. Use the path you get by having Ruby expand “~”. 5. Use “C:/” if you are on a Windows machine. That is per: docs.rubygems.org/read/chapter/12 – Hideaway 30/1, 2012 at 20:55

You shouldn't need sudo to edit your own user's ~/.gemrc. – Bondwoman 5/2, 2017 at 14:26

On Windows7 the .gemrc file is not present, you can let Ruby create one like this (it's not easy to do this in explorer).

gem sources --add http://rubygems.org

You will have to confirm (it's unsafe). Now the file is created in your userprofile folder (c:\users\)

You can edit the textfile to remove the source you added or you can remove it with

gem sources --remove http://rubygems.org

Tiber answered 21/3, 2014 at 17:53 Comment(0)

For Windows users, Ruby doesn't set up .gemrc file. So you have to create .gemrc file in your home directory (echo %USERPROFILE%) and put following line in it:

gem: --no-document

As already mentioned in previous answers, don't use --no-ri and --no-rdoc cause its deprecated. See it yourself:

gem help install

Cao answered 28/9, 2016 at 7:53 Comment(0)

~/.gemrc file

---
gem: --no-document
:update_sources: true
:sources:
- https://rubygems.org/
:benchmark: false
:bulk_threshold: 1000
:backtrace: false
:verbose: true

Use HTTPS and a known source. An improvement over the above answer.

PS: I tried to post the comment and could not get it to format nicely. Finally resorted to posting a new answer.

Klotz answered 8/4, 2023 at 14:24 Comment(0)

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