RCR 223: require a directory

require should check for 'my_lib/my_lib' if 'my_lib' is not a .rb and instead is a directory.

In an attempt to keep their code separate from other's code, library authors have been using a trick like this:

1. my_lib.rb
   

require 'my_lib/my_lib'

1. my_lib/my_lib.rb
   
2. actual code goes here
   

This is silly but needed because of how require works. It makes the site_ruby directory very messy for example. Sometimes there is actual code in the 'my_lib' but authors will still create a my_lib directory for additional code.
This trick/hack is used 29 times in the ruby standard library:

cgi.rb
cgi/session.rb
date.rb
drb/drb.rb
irb.rb
optparse.rb
rdoc/dot/dot.rb
rdoc/generators/template/chm/chm.rb
rdoc/generators/template/html/html.rb
rdoc/generators/template/xml/xml.rb
rdoc/markup/sample/sample.rb
rdoc/markup/simple_markup.rb
rdoc/rdoc.rb
rexml/dtd/dtd.rb
rexml/rexml.rb
rinda/rinda.rb
shell.rb
soap/mapping/mapping.rb
soap/rpc/rpc.rb
soap/soap.rb
test/unit.rb
test/unit/collector.rb
uri.rb
webrick.rb
webrick/httpauth.rb
webrick/httpservlet.rb
wsdl/wsdl.rb
xsd/xmlparser/xmlparser.rb
yaml.rb

Rewrite 'require' to attempt to load 'my_lib/my_lib' if it can't load 'my_lib'. Some examples:

require 'my_lib' # searches for 'my_lib.rb' and 'my_lib/my_lib.rb'

require 'my_path/my_lib' # searches for 'my_path/my_lib.rb' and 'my_path/my_lib/my_lib.rb'

This can not be done by a library writer because the user of the lib would still have to use the old require to require the library with the redefined require.

This could possibly break some code that might depend on not finding a argument given to require. Although this would be rare it could be fatal.

This is why this is submitted as a RCR.

If it was done in pure Ruby it might look like this (thanks to batsman and chris2 for this code):

alias old_require require
def require lib

  old_require lib

rescue LoadError

  old_require( lib + "/" + File.basename(lib) )

end

  foo/foo.rb
  foo.rb

  foo/foo.rb