How to execute a Ruby script in Terminal?

254
votes

I've set everything up that I need on my Mac (Ruby, Rails, Homebrew, Git, etc), and I've even written a small program. Now, how do I execute it in Terminal? I wrote the program in Redcar and saved it as a .rb, but I don't know how to execute it through Terminal. I want to run the program and see if it actually works. How do I do this?

9
rubyterminal
I don't know who voted down your very first question, but I think that's harsh so I've voted it back up. Good luck with everything, it all seems so confusing at first but persevere and before long it'll be second nature, and then you'll be helping out other people on here. - iain
Fast forward to 2017 and now the OP has 2,555 points and over 100 badges. :) - Daniel
Skip 3 more years and he has 7,875 points and 120+ badges! - Hacconnoisseur

9 Answers

268
votes

Just call: ruby your_program.rb

or

  • start your program with #!/usr/bin/env ruby,
  • make your file executable by running chmod +x your_program.rb
  • and do ./your_program.rb some_param
45
votes

Open your terminal and open folder where file is saved.
Ex /home/User1/program/test.rb

  1. Open terminal
  2. cd /home/User1/program
  3. ruby test.rb

format or test.rb

class Test 
  def initialize
   puts "I love India"
  end
end

# initialize object
Test.new

output

I love India
24
votes

Assuming ruby interpreter is in your PATH (it should be), you simply run

ruby your_file.rb
17
votes

To call ruby file use : ruby your_program.rb

To execute your ruby file as script:

  1. start your program with #!/usr/bin/env ruby

  2. run that script using ./your_program.rb param

  3. If you are not able to execute this script check permissions for file.
4
votes

Just invoke ruby XXXXX.rb in terminal, if the interpreter is in your $PATH variable.

( this can hardly be a rails thing, until you have it running. )

3
votes

For those not getting a solution for older answers, i simply put my file name as the very first line in my code.

like so

 #ruby_file_name_here.rb

 puts "hello world"
2
votes

Although its too late to answer this question, but still for those guys who came here to see the solution of same problem just like me and didn't get a satisfactory answer on this page, The reason is that you don't have your file in the form of .rb extension. You most probably have it in simple text mode. Let me elaborate. Binding up the whole solution on the page, here you go (assuming you filename is abc.rb or at least you created abc):

Type in terminal window:

cd ~/to/the/program/location
ruby abc.rb

and you are done

If the following error occurs

ruby: No such file or directory -- abc.rb (LoadError)

Then go to the directory in which you have the abc file, rename it as abc.rb Close gedit and reopen the file abc.rb. Apply the same set of commands and success!

1
votes

Open Terminal 

cd to/the/program/location
ruby program.rb

or add #!/usr/bin/env ruby in the first of your program (script tell that this is executed using Ruby Interpreter)

Open Terminal

cd to/the/program/location
chmod 777 program.rb
./program.rb
0
votes

In case someone is trying to run a script in a RAILS environment, rails provide a runner to execute scripts in rails context via

rails runner my_script.rb

More details here: https://guides.rubyonrails.org/command_line.html#rails-runner