Rbenv: Love at first sight while setting up VSCode debugger for RSpec
Tags: ruby, rspec, vscode, debugging
Published: 2020-01-08 12:36:46

---
title: Rbenv: Love at first sight while setting up VSCode debugger for RSpec
published: true
description: Short story on why I have switched to use Rbenv instead of to RVM
tags: ruby, rspec, vscode, debugging
---

I had been using RVM to manage Ruby versions since I started my Ruby (and Rails) journey far in 2011. I was pretty happy with it. It did the job well and I didn't even think of trying something else. Even in complex environments with many different MRI and JRuby versions. Until now...

I use VSCode for coding. It does what I need and it's pretty comfortable to work with (don't blame me, vim Adventists, I like it too, but...). Previously I worked with C# and Microsoft Visual Studio, and I loved its built-in debugger. I use pry and console to debug Ruby code mostly but VSCode has a debugger too. So a couple of days ago, I decided to give it a try. It worked fine on my machine with a couple of MRI Ruby versions installed via RVM but I failed to run it on my office machine with MRI mixed with jRuby of all sorts and colours. I just wanted to run a debugger on a single spec. It sounds to be easy but it wasn't. Every time I fix one issue with paths, gems, whatever, another pops up. I was about to give up. 

Rbenv came for the rescue. I've heard about it before but I didn't realise how cool this tool actually is. It so simple and easy to install and use, and it offers shims which make setting up environments work like a charm. Add configuration for a debugger once, and then just pick any ruby version and everything works with no configuration changes needed. It turned out to be that simple!

Add to Gemfile:

    group :development, :test do 
      gem "ruby-debug-ide"
    
      platform :jruby do
        gem "ruby-debug-base"
      end
    
      platform :ruby do
        gem "debase"
      end
    end
    

Install Rbenv, Ruby and gems:

    brew install rbenv
    rbenv init
    rbenv install 2.6.3
    rbenv local 2.6.3
    rbenv rehash
    gem install bundler 
    bundle install

And then add configuration in VSCode: 

    {
      // Use IntelliSense to learn about possible attributes.
      // Hover to view descriptions of existing attributes.
      // For more information, visit: https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=830387
      "version": "0.2.0",
      "configurations": [
        {
          "name": "Debug RSpec - open spec file on a certain line",
          "type": "Ruby",
          "request": "launch",
          "cwd": "${workspaceRoot}",
          "useBundler": true,
          "pathToBundler": "<home dir>/.rbenv/shims/bundler",
          "showDebuggerOutput": false,
          "pathToRDebugIDE": "<home dir>/.rbenv/shims/rdebug-ide",
          "program": "<home dir>/.rbenv/shims/spec",
          "args": [
            "${file}:${lineNumber}"
          ]
        }
      ]
    }
    // You can find paths using `which` command in terminal: `which bundler`, etc

Set breakpoints, open spec file, select spec, and press F5. It works like a charm for me. No dances with a tambourine. Am I happy? Definitely, I am! I'm in love with Rbenv now and will I suggest everybody who is not using it yet to give it a try. You'll like it!