It took forever, but gem-compare hits 1.0!
What is gem-compare, you ask? gem-compare is a RubyGems plugin that can compare gem versions. I originally created it to vet new gem versions I packaged for Fedora, but it’s useful for all kinds of tasks. The main use-cases for gem-compare are:
- checking accidental permission changes
- checking for files that shouldn’t make the release
- checking for unwanted dependency changes
- tracking license changes
- reviewing new code
Have you heard about the npm package that wiped out people’s disk space based on geolocation? gem-compare can help you prevent bad upgrades in the Ruby eco-system.
Usage
After installation (that needs curl header files), you can start comparing:
$ gem install gem-compare
$ gem compare rails 6.2.0 7.0.0 -k
The -k option will keep the gem files if you need to work with them.
By default all kinds of comparisons are run, but you can specify what you need:
$ gem compare --help
Usage: gem compare GEMNAME VERSION [VERSION ...] [options]
Options:
-a, --all Show every comparison
-k, --keep-all Keep downloaded and extracted gem files
-n, --no-color Do not colorize output
--platform PLATFORM Specify the platform of gem to compare
-p, --param PARAM Compare only a given paramater
-r, --runtime Compare only runtime dependencies
-d, --development Compare only development dependencies
-f, --files Compare only files for runtime
-F, --diff Diff file contents
-g, --gemfiles Compare only Gemfiles
-b, --brief Include only important changes in the report
-s, --sources SOURCES Use different source URIs for gems (separated by comma)
Note that you can compare as many versions at once as you want.
What’s new
gem-compare stayed long time at 0.0.7, but last weekend I updated the project for RubyGems 3.x and finally released 1.0. And that’s not everything, because 1.0 brings a nice new feature which I want to highlight.
It’s now possible to compare whole file diffs with the --diff option:
GitHub
So go ahead and make gem-compare part of your release and upgrade workflows :). Contributions welcome.
