Binbundle

• Support
• Binbundle on GitHub

• Installation
• Usage
  • Options
  • Info commands
• Recommendations
• Changelog

Creates a “bundle” file of all installed gems with executables for easy restore on a new system.

Creates a “bundle” file of all installed gems with executables. The resulting file is an executable script that can be run standalone, or in combination with this script to add options like sudo or --user-install to the gem install commands. These options can be specified when creating the file as well. A file created with sudo or --user-install commands can still be overridden when running via this script and --install.

Created file is called Binfile in the current directory unless another path is specified with --file.

Installation

Install with:

$ gem install binbundle

If this causes errors, use:

$ gem install --user-install binbundle

Usage

Run binbundle bundle to create a Binfile in the current directory, or with --file FILENAME to specify a path/filename. That file can optionally be made executable (you’ll be prompted). In the future when doing a clean install or using a new system, you can just run that file as a standalone to reinstall all of your gem binaries.

Example:

binbundle bundle --file ~/dotfiles/Binfile

Using this script with the install subcommand will read the Binfile and execute it line by line, adding options like version numbers, sudo, or the --user-install flag, overriding any of these specified when bundling.

Example:

binbundle install --no-versions --user-install --file ~/dotfiles/Binfile

You can also run with subcommands bundle or install, e.g. bundle_gem_bins install.

Options

Usage: binbundle [options] [bundle|install]
        --[no-]versions              Include version info in output (default true)
        --dry-run                    Output to STDOUT instead of file
    -s, --sudo                       Install gems with sudo
    -u, --user-install               Use --user-install to install gems
    -f, --file FILE                  Output to alternative filename (default Binfile)
    -l, --local                      Use installed gems instead of Binfile for gem_for and bins_for
    -v, --version                    Display version
    -h, --help                       Display this screen

Info commands

You can retrieve some basic info about gems and their binaries using binbundle gem for BIN or binbundle bins for GEM. This will read Binfile or any file specified by --file and return the requested info, either the gem associated with the given binary (BIN), or the binaries associated with the given gem name (GEM).

Use either info command with --local to parse installed gems rather than a Binfile.

Recommendations

I recommend using Binbundle along with a tool like Dotbot. Commit your bundle to a repo that you can easily clone to a new machine and then make gem install binbundle and binbundle install ~/dotfiles/Binfile part of your restore process.

Changelog