Cygwin and irb

If you had tried to start irb in Windows that has cygwin installed, you might have got the following exception trace:

C:/Ruby192/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.9.1/rbreadline.rb:2095:in `expand_path': non-absolute home (ArgumentError)
        from C:/Ruby192/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.9.1/rbreadline.rb:2095:in `_rl_read_init_file'
        from C:/Ruby192/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.9.1/rbreadline.rb:2078:in `rl_read_init_file'
        from C:/Ruby192/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.9.1/rbreadline.rb:2499:in `readline_initialize_everything'
        from C:/Ruby192/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.9.1/rbreadline.rb:3730:in `rl_initialize'
        from C:/Ruby192/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.9.1/rbreadline.rb:4737:in `readline'
        from C:/Ruby192/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.9.1/readline.rb:40:in `readline'
        from C:/Ruby192/lib/ruby/1.9.1/irb/input-method.rb:115:in `gets'
        from C:/Ruby192/lib/ruby/1.9.1/irb.rb:139:in `block (2 levels) in eval_input'
        from C:/Ruby192/lib/ruby/1.9.1/irb.rb:273:in `signal_status'
        from C:/Ruby192/lib/ruby/1.9.1/irb.rb:138:in `block in eval_input'
        from C:/Ruby192/lib/ruby/1.9.1/irb/ruby-lex.rb:188:in `call'
        from C:/Ruby192/lib/ruby/1.9.1/irb/ruby-lex.rb:188:in `buf_input'
        from C:/Ruby192/lib/ruby/1.9.1/irb/ruby-lex.rb:103:in `getc'
        from C:/Ruby192/lib/ruby/1.9.1/irb/slex.rb:205:in `match_io'
        from C:/Ruby192/lib/ruby/1.9.1/irb/slex.rb:75:in `match'
        from C:/Ruby192/lib/ruby/1.9.1/irb/ruby-lex.rb:286:in `token'
        from C:/Ruby192/lib/ruby/1.9.1/irb/ruby-lex.rb:262:in `lex'
        from C:/Ruby192/lib/ruby/1.9.1/irb/ruby-lex.rb:233:in `block (2 levels) in each_top_level_statement'
        from C:/Ruby192/lib/ruby/1.9.1/irb/ruby-lex.rb:229:in `loop'
        from C:/Ruby192/lib/ruby/1.9.1/irb/ruby-lex.rb:229:in `block in each_top_level_statement'
        from C:/Ruby192/lib/ruby/1.9.1/irb/ruby-lex.rb:228:in `catch'
        from C:/Ruby192/lib/ruby/1.9.1/irb/ruby-lex.rb:228:in `each_top_level_statement'
        from C:/Ruby192/lib/ruby/1.9.1/irb.rb:155:in `eval_input'
        from C:/Ruby192/lib/ruby/1.9.1/irb.rb:70:in `block in start'
        from C:/Ruby192/lib/ruby/1.9.1/irb.rb:69:in `catch'
        from C:/Ruby192/lib/ruby/1.9.1/irb.rb:69:in `start'
        from C:/Ruby192/bin/irb:12:in `
'
The solution to this problem is very simple. Just unset the HOME environment variable and start irb again.
set HOME=
set HOMEDRIVE=
set HOMEPATH=
set HOMESHARE=
Some of them are not directly related to Cygwin. But resetting will help you in avoiding issues while running gems.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Thank you, that solved my problem :)
Anonymous said…
Thanks, I am able to run irb in windows.
We can usually form more of the possible values and instances out here because in most of the cases the usual thoughts would help students to bring about more of the values.
Unknown said…
This comment has been removed by the author.

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