Adding files when installing a gem

Question

I'm writing a gem which needs a directory to store some config. I want to do this upon installation but I'm not sure how best to insert code into the installation process.

By adding the code to the Rakefile and adding spec.extensions = ["Rakefile"] to my gemspec, I've achieved what I want to do but this method means the installation process tells me I'm building native extensions; this is misleading.

Is there a built in way of doing this or via bundler? I'm assuming Bundler::GemHelper.install_tasks is close to what I'm after but I can't find helpful documentation.

EDIT: My current Rakefile .

Answer 1

It seems like the RubyGems designers intentionally left the option to run a script during installation... so I would say that the accepted way is to do the directory creation in the application.

The unix way is for the application to create the directory (vi and git do this).

FileUtils.mkdir_p is handy... it will save you from having to check if the directory is already there.