Feature #14565: Simpler, one-liner, failsafe require in ruby? [Suggested names: require_failsafe, require_safe, require_try, require_add) - Ruby master - Ruby Issue Tracking System

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Feature #14565

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Simpler, one-liner, failsafe require in ruby? [Suggested names: require_failsafe, require_safe, require_try, require_add)

Added by shevegen (Robert A. Heiler) over 6 years ago. Updated about 5 years ago.

Status:

Open

Assignee:

Target version:

[ruby-core:85886]

Description

I have quite a bit of code like this:

begin
  require 'x/tools/cdrskin.rb'
rescue LoadError; end

I also use the longer variant, e.g.,

begin
  require 'foobar'
rescue LoadError
  puts 'project foobar is not available - consider '\
    'installing it via gem install foobar'
end

Often, I do not need to inform the user about missing gems/projects that are tiny and not very important. In my larger ruby projects, I handle cases where a smaller project is not available or available, so I can proceed either way. It is a bit pointless to notify the user when that is me; that is why I would like to have a one-liner.

I am thinking of an API such as any of the following:

require_failsafe
require_safe
require_try
require_add

This is for loading with a rescue LoadError without notification. If I need to notify a user then I am fine with the longer variant.

If anyone has better names, feel free to add them! I think people are more likely to remember the require-family, e. g. require 'foo.rb' or require_relative 'bar.rb' and so forth.

I also wanted to propose a stronger require/import, including the possibility to refer to .rb files without a hardcoded path (if the .rb file is moved,
all explicit requires to it, in particular from external projects, would have to change; and my vague idea is to replace this with some kind of project-specific way to
"label" files and load these files based on these "labels", but that is for another suggestion; I only want to mention it because Hiroshi Shibata made some suggestion as extension to require, and I think the use case he mentioned may also be useful to see whether ruby may get a stronger "load code in files" functionality for ruby 3.x eventually).