Backports Library

Yearning to write a gem using some new cool features in Ruby 3.2 while still supporting Ruby 2.5.x? Have some legacy code in Ruby 1.8 but can't live without flat_map?

This gem is for you!

The goal of 'backports' is to make it easier to write ruby code that runs across different versions of Ruby.

Note: Next major version (X-mas 2021?) may drop support for Ruby < 2.2.

Loading backports

Explicitly (recommended)

For example, if you want to use transform_values and transform_keys, even in Ruby implementations that don't include it:

require 'backports/2.4.0/hash/transform_values'
require 'backports/2.5.0/hash/transform_keys'

This will enable Hash#transform_values and Hash#transform_keys, using the native versions if available or otherwise provide a pure Ruby version.

By Module

To bring all the backports for a given Class/Module, you can specify only that Class:

require 'backports/2.3.0/hash'

This will make sure that Hash responds to dig, fetch_values, to_proc and comparisons.

Up to a specific Ruby version (for quick coding)

You can load all backports up to a specific version. For example, to bring any version of Ruby mostly up to Ruby 3.2.0's standards:

require 'backports/3.2.0'

This will bring in all the features of 1.8.7 and many features of Ruby 1.9.x all the way up to Ruby 3.2.0 (for all versions of Ruby)!

You may require 'backports/latest' as a shortcut to the latest Ruby version supported.

Note: For production / public gems, it is highly recommended you only require the backports you need explicitly.

Note: Although I am a Ruby committer, this gem is a personal project and is not endorsed by ruby-core.

What's inside

Goals for backported features:

1. Won't break older code
2. Pure Ruby (no C extensions)
3. Pass ruby/spec

Let's be a bit more precise about the "breaking code" business. It is of course entirely possible that code will break. In particular, you may be distinguishing parameters with duck typing, but a builtin class may, in the future, be responding to a particular call. Here's an example from Rails that is relying on the fact that Proc and Method respond to :to_proc and Hash isn't. That is, until Ruby 2.3... This old version of Rails therefore won't work on Ruby 2.3, or on older Rubies with that the 2.3.0/hash/to_proc loaded...

For Ruby < 2.0, there are some real incompatibilities. For example, Module::instance_methods which returns strings in 1.8 and symbols in 1.9. No change can be made without the risk of breaking existing code. Such incompatibilities are left unchanged, although you can require some of these changes in addition (see below).

Installation & compatibility

backports can be installed with:

gem install backports

To use:

require 'rubygems'
# For only specific backports:
require 'backports/1.9.1/kernel/require_relative'
require 'backports/2.0.0/enumerable/lazy'

# For all backports up to a given version
require 'backports/1.9.2' # All backports for Ruby 1.9.2 and below

Note: about a dozen of backports have a dependency that will be also loaded. For example, the backport of Enumerable#flat_map uses flatten(1), so if required from Ruby 1.8.6 (where Array#flatten does not accept an argument), the backport for Ruby's 1.8.7 flatten with an argument will also be loaded.

With bundler, add to your Gemfile:

gem 'backports', :require => false

Run bundle install and require the desired backports. Compatible with Ruby itself, JRuby and Rubinius.

Complete List of backports

Ruby 3.2 backports

Class

• attached_object

Data

• Complete class

Enumerator

• Enumerator.product and Enumerator::Product

Hash

• shift (with correct behavior when empty)

Integer

• ceildiv

MatchData

• byteoffset

Ruby 3.1 backports

Array

• intersect?

Class

• subclasses

Enumerable

• compact
• tally (with hash argument)

File

• dirname (with depth argument)

Integer

• try_convert

MatchData

• match
• match_length

Struct

• keyword_init?

Ruby 3.0 backports

Env

• except

Hash

• except
• transform_keys, transform_keys! (with hash argument)

Ractor

• All methods, with the caveats:
  • uses Ruby's Thread internally
  • will not raise some errors when Ractor would (in particular Ractor::IsolationError)
  • supported in Ruby 2.0+ only

Symbol

• name

Ruby 2.7 backports

Array

• intersection

Comparable

• clamp (with range)

Complex

• <=>

Enumerable

• filter_map
• tally

Enumerator

• produce (class method)

Symbol

• end_with?
• start_with?

Time

• floor, ceil

Ruby 2.6 backports

Array

• difference, union
• to_h (with block)

Enumerable

• chain
• to_h (with block)

Enumerator::Chain (use Enumerable#chain)

Hash

• merge, merge!/update (with multiple arguments)
• to_h (with block)

Kernel

• then

Method

• <<, >>

Proc

• <<, >>

Range

• cover? (with Range argument)

Ruby 2.5 backports

Array

• append, prepend

Dir

• children, each_child

Enumerable

• any?, all?, none?, one? (with pattern argument)

Hash

• slice
• transform_keys

Integer

• sqrt
• allbits?, anybits? and nobits?

Kernel

• yield_self

Module

• attr, attr_accessor, attr_reader, attr_writer (now public)
• define_method, alias_method, undef_method, remove_method (now public)

String

• delete_prefix, delete_prefix!
• delete_suffix, delete_suffix!
• undump

Struct

• new (with keyword_init: true)

Ruby 2.4 backports

Comparable

• clamp

Enumerable

• sum
• uniq

Hash

• compact, compact!
• transform_values, transform_values!

Queue

• close, closed?

Regexp

• match?

String

• match?
• unpack1

FalseClass, Fixnum, Bignum, Float, NilClass, TrueClass

• dup

Ruby 2.3 backports

Array

• bsearch_index
• dig

Enumerable

• chunk_while
• grep_v

Hash

• dig
• fetch_values
• to_proc
• <=, <, >=, >

Numeric

• negative?
• positive?

String

• unary + and -

Struct

• dig

Ruby 2.2 backports

Enumerable

• slice_after
• slice_when

Float

• prev_float
• next_float

Kernel

• itself

Method

• curry
• super_method

String

• unicode_normalize
• unicode_normalize!
• unicode_normalize?

Ruby 2.1 backports

Array

• to_h

Bignum

• bit_length

Enumerable

• to_h

Fixnum

• bit_length

Module

• include (now public)
• singleton_class?

Ruby 2.0 backports

Array

• bsearch

Enumerable

• lazy

Enumerator::Lazy

• all methods

Hash

• default_proc= (with nil argument)
• to_h

nil.to_h

Range

• bsearch

Struct

• to_h

Ruby 1.9.3 backports

File

• NULL

IO

• advise (acts as a noop)
• write, binwrite

String

• byteslice
• prepend

Ruby 1.9.2 backports

Array

• rotate, rotate!
• keep_if, select!
• product (with block)
• repeated_combination, repeated_permutation
• sort_by!
• uniq, uniq! (with block)

Complex

• to_r

Dir

• home

Enumerable

• chunk
• flat_map, collect_concat
• join
• slice_before

Float::INFINITY, NAN

Hash

• keep_if, select!

Object

• singleton_class

Random (new class)

Note: The methods of Random can't be required individually; the class can only be required whole with require 'backports/1.9.2/random'.

Ruby 1.9.1 backports

Additionally, the following Ruby 1.9 features have been backported:

Array

• try_convert
• sample

Enumerable

• each_with_object
• each_with_index (with arguments)

Enumerator

• new (with block)

File

• binread
• to_path
• All class methods accepting filenames will accept files or anything with a #to_path method.
• File.open accepts an options hash.

Float

• round

Hash

• assoc, rassoc
• key
• try_convert
• default_proc=

Integer

• magnitude
• round

IO

• bin_read
• try_convert
• ungetbyte
• IO.open accepts an options hash.

Kernel

• require_relative

Math

• log (with base)
• log2

Numeric

• round

Object

• define_singleton_method
• public_method
• public_send

Proc

• yield
• lambda?
• curry
• ===

Range

• cover?

Regexp

• try_convert

String

• ascii_only?
• chr
• clear
• codepoints, each_codepoint
• get_byte, set_byte
• ord
• try_convert

Enumerator can be accessed directly (instead of Enumerable::Enumerator)

To include only these backports and those of the 1.8 line, require "backports/1.9.1".

Moreover, a pretty good imitation of BasicObject is available, but since it is only an imitation, it must be required explicitly:

require 'backports/basic_object'

Ruby 1.8.7

Complete Ruby 1.8.7 backporting (core language). Refer to the official list of changes. That's about 130 backports!

Only exceptions:

String#gsub (the form returning an enumerator)

GC.stress= (not implemented)

Array#choice (removed in 1.9, use 1.9.1's Array#sample instead)

Libraries

Libraries were slowly being backported, but they are now available as separate gems.

The backports would be automatically used after requiring 'backports/std_lib' but this is now deprecated and discouraged.

The following libraries are up to date with Ruby 1.9.3:

Matrix

Prime

Set

The following library is to date with Ruby 2.0.0:

OpenStruct (ostruct)

I am aware of the following backport gem, which probably won't make it into this gem:

Net::SMTP for Ruby 1.8.6:

[smtp_tls](http://seattlerb.rubyforge.org/smtp_tls/)

Requiring backports for a given version of Ruby will also load 'backports/std_lib'.

Forcing incompatibilities

Some backports would create incompatibilities in their current Ruby version but could be useful in some projects. It is possible to request such incompatible changes. Backports currently supports the following:

Hash

• select (returns a Hash instead of an Array)

Enumerable / Array

• map (returns an enumerator when called without a block)

String

• length, size (for UTF-8 support)

These must be imported in addition to the backports gem, for example:

require "backports/force/hash_select"
{}.select{} # => {}, even in Ruby 1.8

Thanks

Thanks for the bug reports and patches, in particular the repeat offenders:

Arto Bendiken ( bendiken )

Konstantin Haase ( rkh )

Roger Pack ( rdp )

Victor Shepelev ( zverok )

Contributing

The best way to submit a patch is to also submit a patch to ruby/spec and then a patch to backports that make it pass the spec.

See below to test rubyspec. Note that only features missing from your Ruby version are tested.

git submodule init && git submodule update # => pulls rubyspecs
bundle install
bundle exec rake spec[hash/slice]          # => tests Hash#slice  (must be in Ruby 2.4 or less)
bundle exec rake spec[hash/*]              # => tests all backported Hash methods
bundle exec rake spec  (or rake spec[*/*]) # => all rubyspecs for backported methods

Failures that are acceptable are added the to tags file.

License

backports is released under the terms of the MIT License, see the included LICENSE file.

Author : Marc-André Lafortune