Did Ruby 3.2.2 introduce a breaking change?
What happened to File.exists?
Today I learned that Ruby 3.2.2 introduced a breaking change in the patch update from Ruby 3.2.1
This may be a sensational way to look at things since the “breaking change” was to remove a deprcated feature; let me explain why I see this as a violation of Semantic Versioning.
According to an answer to StackOverflow: undefined method exists? for File:Class (NoMethodError)? the plural version of File.exists? was removed in Ruby 3.2.0 (see “Removed methods”) although the embedded version of Ruby version 3.2.1 that ships with cinc 18.2.7 includes File.exists? while a straight install of Ruby version 3.2.2 does not.
[root ~]# chef-client --version
Cinc Client: 18.2.7
[root ~]# /opt/cinc/embedded/bin/ruby --version
ruby 3.1.2p20 (2022-04-12 revision 4491bb740a) [x86_64-linux]
I am not certain that this is a Ruby issue, as I cannot find reference to the File.exists? removal in either v3_2_2 or v3.2.1…
Doing some more digging into the ruby git repo
git log --graph --pretty=tformat:'%Cred%h%Creset -%C(yellow)%d%Creset %s %-n%Cgreen(%ci)%Creset [%C(yellow)%an%Creset]%-n' --date=relative -S "exists?"
reveals that the File.exists? method was removed then reverted (re-added) in December 2020 then removed again a year later in December 2021:
...
* bb2c360138 - Update NEWS.md for 3.3.0 [ci skip]
| (2022-12-26 11:43:08 +0900) [Kazuhiro NISHIYAMA]
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* 7d264e8e7b - Copy NEWS.md to doc/NEWS/NEWS-3.2.0.md [ci skip]
| (2022-12-26 11:43:08 +0900) [Kazuhiro NISHIYAMA]
|
...
* 0d9f4ea0d4 - Import spec examples from ruby/syntax_suggest
| (2022-08-26 12:15:47 +0900) [Hiroshi SHIBATA]
|
...
* f59b2e440e - NEWS: Removed methods
| (2021-12-31 23:59:50 +0900) [Nobuyoshi Nakada]
|
...
* bf97415c02 - Removed deprecated Dir.exists? and File.exists?
| (2021-12-28 18:36:30 +0900) [Nobuyoshi Nakada]
|
...
* 4e01ab342a - Revert "Removed deprecated Dir.exists? and File.exists?"
| (2020-12-02 19:11:01 +0900) [Nobuyoshi Nakada]
|
* 1a5205536f - Removed deprecated Dir.exists? and File.exists?
| (2020-12-02 17:24:34 +0900) [Nobuyoshi Nakada]
|
...
* eada635033 - Add category to `rb_warn_deprecated`
| (2020-09-02 12:44:33 -0700) [eileencodes]
|
...
* 67f616c523 - Show the deprecated name in the warning
| (2020-04-07 12:49:33 +0900) [Nobuyoshi Nakada]
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* d827c718db - [DOC] Removed RDoc of deprecated methods [ci skip]
| (2020-04-06 23:06:03 +0900) [Nobuyoshi Nakada]
|
...
* a58bbd6a51 - Use `rb_warn_deprecated` for `File.exists?` and `Dir.exists?`
| (2020-04-06 21:43:32 +0900) [Nobuyoshi Nakada]
|
...
* fac60be324 - shell.rb is no longer bundled [ci skip]
| (2019-12-20 09:40:06 +0900) [Nobuyoshi Nakada]
|
...
* 3b56a0934f - Removed Shell from the ruby repository.
| (2019-09-20 12:56:18 +0900) [Hiroshi SHIBATA]
|
...
* 4afd897524 - File.exists? is deprecated.
| (2019-07-31 07:47:03 +0800) [Hiroshi SHIBATA]
|
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* 2a81d3a26a - [rubygems/rubygems] Skip integration test for rake package task.
| (2019-07-31 07:47:02 +0800) [Hiroshi SHIBATA]
|
...
* 6204e0804b - Update to ruby/spec@35a9fba
I am not sure yet which of these commits were released when but safe to say that a library using File.exists? seems to work in Ruby v3.2.1 and fail in Ruby 3.2.2.
TL;DR if you run into this error when using chefspec with v18.2.7 of the chef gem
undefined method `exists?' for File:Class (NoMethodError)?
consider downgrading ruby to match the embedded version in use on your servers.