Recently, I was attempting to install a Ruby application and as part of this process installed multitude of gems. Now, I no longer need this application and was looking forward for a quick solution to uninstall all the gems associated with it. This article outlines a summarized list of commands to achieve the same.
# List all the gems installed in your machine (example output is captured from my machine).
root@labs:~$ gem list
*** LOCAL GEMS ***
bundler (1.2.1)
daemon_controller (1.0.0)
daemons (1.1.0)
eventmachine (1.0.0)
fastthread (1.0.7)
hoe (3.1.0)
passenger (3.0.17)
rack (1.4.1)
rake (0.8.7)
rmagick (2.13.1)
stompserver (0.9.9)
# If you prefer to uninstall each gem individually, utilize the below command.
root@labs:~$ gem uninstall -Iax
# Example:
root@labs:~$ gem uninstall -Iax passenger
# If you prefer to uninstall all of them, either run the uninstaller via a for loop like below:
root@labs:~$ for gem_name in $(gem list|awk '{print $1}'); do
> gem uninstall -Iax "${gem_name}"
> done
# Or, utilize xargs as listed at: http://geekystuff.net/2009/01/14/remove-all-ruby-gems/
root@labs:~$ gem list | awk '{print $1}' | xargs gem uninstall -Iax
# Legend (captured from the help documentation on gem for reference):
Usage: gem uninstall GEMNAME [GEMNAME ...] [options]
Options:
-a, --[no-]all Uninstall all matching versions
-I, --[no-]ignore-dependencies Ignore dependency requirements while
uninstalling
-x, --[no-]executables Uninstall applicable executables without
confirmation
-i, --install-dir DIR Directory to uninstall gem from
-n, --bindir DIR Directory to remove binaries from
--[no-]user-install Uninstall from user's home directory
in addition to GEM_HOME.
--[no-]format-executable Assume executable names match Ruby's prefix and suffix.
-v, --version VERSION Specify version of gem to uninstall
--platform PLATFORM Specify the platform of gem to uninstall
Common Options:
-h, --help Get help on this command
-V, --[no-]verbose Set the verbose level of output
-q, --quiet Silence commands
--config-file FILE Use this config file instead of default
--backtrace Show stack backtrace on errors
--debug Turn on Ruby debugging
Arguments:
GEMNAME name of gem to uninstall
Summary:
Uninstall gems from the local repository
References:
