# What is Ruby?

Ruby is a dynamic, reflective, object-oriented, general-purpose, open-source programming language. According to its authors, Ruby was influenced by Perl, Smalltalk, Eiffel, Ada, and Lisp. It supports multiple programming paradigms, including functional, object-oriented, and imperative. It also has a dynamic type system and automatic memory management.

> [wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby_(programming_language)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby_%28programming_language%29)

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# How to use this image

## Create a `Dockerfile` in your Ruby app project

```dockerfile
FROM %%IMAGE%%:3.3

# throw errors if Gemfile has been modified since Gemfile.lock
RUN bundle config --global frozen 1

WORKDIR /usr/src/app

COPY Gemfile Gemfile.lock ./
RUN bundle install

COPY . .

CMD ["./your-daemon-or-script.rb"]
```

Put this file in the root of your app, next to the `Gemfile`.

You can then build and run the Ruby image:

```console
$ docker build -t my-ruby-app .
$ docker run -it --name my-running-script my-ruby-app
```

### Generate a `Gemfile.lock`

The above example `Dockerfile` expects a `Gemfile.lock` in your app directory. This `docker run` will help you generate one. Run it in the root of your app, next to the `Gemfile`:

```console
$ docker run --rm -v "$PWD":/usr/src/app -w /usr/src/app %%IMAGE%%:3.3 bundle install
```

## Run a single Ruby script

For many simple, single file projects, you may find it inconvenient to write a complete `Dockerfile`. In such cases, you can run a Ruby script by using the Ruby Docker image directly:

```console
$ docker run -it --rm --name my-running-script -v "$PWD":/usr/src/myapp -w /usr/src/myapp %%IMAGE%%:3.3 ruby your-daemon-or-script.rb
```

## Encoding

By default, Ruby inherits the locale of the environment in which it is run. For most users running Ruby on their desktop systems, that means it's likely using some variation of `*.UTF-8` (`en_US.UTF-8`, etc). In Docker however, the default locale is `C`, which can have unexpected results. If your application needs to interact with UTF-8, it is recommended that you explicitly adjust the locale of your image/container via `-e LANG=C.UTF-8` or `ENV LANG C.UTF-8`.

## Image assumptions

This image sets several environment variables which change the behavior of Bundler and Gem for running a single application within a container (especially in such a way that the development sources of the application can be bind-mounted inside a container and not have `.bundle` from the host interfere with the proper functionality of the container).

The environment variables we set are canonically listed in the above-linked `Dockerfiles`, but some of them include `GEM_HOME`, `BUNDLE_SILENCE_ROOT_WARNING`, and `BUNDLE_APP_CONFIG`.

If these cause issues for your use case (running multiple Ruby applications in a single container, for example), setting them to the empty string *should* be sufficient for undoing their behavior.
