The idea is very simple: test.rb: # this will download bar.rb and eval its content. require "http://foo.com/bar.rb"

If a remote file (or one of its local dependencies) requires something that can't be found locally, it will try to find it remotely from the same location as the parent.

http://example.com/test/foo.rb: # this will load "http://example.com/test/foo/bar.rb" # if "foo/bar" is not available locally require "foo/bar"

http_require properly sets filename on eval so that the file's uri appears in the stacktrace:

foo.rb:

puts :foo
require 'bar'
def foo
  bar
end

bar.rb

puts :bar
def bar
  raise
end

$ irb
>> require 'http_require'
=> true
>> require 'http://localhost:2000/foo.rb'
foo
bar
=> nil
>> foo
RuntimeError:
    from http://localhost:2000/bar.rb:3:in `bar'
    from http://localhost:2000/foo.rb:5:in `foo'
    from (irb):3
>>

You can find the latest sources on [github]:(http://github.com/astrails/http_require)

sudo gem install astrails-http_require --source http://gems.github.com/

Copyright (c) 2009 Vitaly Kushner. See LICENSE for details.