A Single Programmer's Blog

If you are like me, you develop your applications on Windows and deploy to Linux/Unix/FreeBSD, whatever.

On Rails 1.1, the console does not start anymore on Windows. It reports the following error:

1 $ ruby script\console

2 Loading development environment.

3 c:/ruby/lib/ruby/1.8/irb/init.rb:151:in `parse_opts’: undefined method `upcase’ for nil:NilClass (NoMethodError)

4         from c:/ruby/lib/ruby/1.8/irb/init.rb:19:in `setup’

5         from c:/ruby/lib/ruby/1.8/irb.rb:54:in `start’

6         from c:/ruby/bin/irb:13

There are two ways to fix this issue:

1. Upgrade Ruby to 1.8.4, or
2. Patch your vendor/rails/railties/lib/commands/console.rb to remove the “—prompt-mode single” option:
   
   
   
   

   
   
    1 Index: vendor/rails/railties/lib/commands/console.rb
   
    2 ===============
   
    3 —- vendor/rails/railties/lib/commands/console.rb       (revision 4097)
   
    4 + vendor/rails/railties/lib/commands/console.rb       (working copy)
   
    5 @</span> -22,4 +22,4 <span class="chg">@
   
    6  else
   
    7    puts "Loading #{ENV[‘RAILS_ENV’]} environment."
   
    8  end
   
    9 -exec "#{options[:irb]} #{libs} —prompt-mode simple"
   
   10 +exec "#{options[:irb]} #{libs}"
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
    1 Index: vendor/rails/railties/lib/commands/console.rb
   
    2 ===
   
    3 —- vendor/rails/railties/lib/commands/console.rb       (revision 4097)
   
    4  vendor/rails/railties/lib/commands/console.rb       (working copy)
   
    5 @&lt;/span&gt; -22,4 +22,4 &lt;span class="chg"&gt;@
   
    6  else
   
    7    puts "Loading #{ENV[‘RAILS_ENV’]} environment."
   
    8  end
   
    9 -exec "#{options[:irb]} #{libs} —prompt-mode simple"
   
   10 exec "#{options[:irb]} #{libs}"
   
   
   
   
   
   

UPDATE (2006-03-30): Ah, I just found the reason why irb chokes. Richard Livsey’s script/console with edge Rails on Windows with 1.8.2