Bundler::AsOf

Bundler::AsOf allows you to bundle install dependencies as of a certain date in the past.

This is intended for use with old projects that have not been well-maintained and that won't bundle or won't run today using recent releases (but were able to be bundled on some date in the past).

Inspiration

Inspiration for this came from @Schwad and his portal_gun project. Also a bunch of old mdpress presentations that I have sitting around in Dropbox were motivating.

How Does It Work?

bundler-as_of is a Bundler plugin that uses a before-install-all hook to modify the dependencies that Bundler installs and writes to the lockfile.

It traverses the full dependency graph (including transitive dependencies) and whenever possible, resolves the version to the latest release that both:

  1. satisfies the version requirements specified (if any)
  2. existed as-of the date specified

So, more specifically, bundler-as_of will try to avoid any releases that were made after the specified date.

Occasionally, bundler-as_of may not be able to find a dependency that meets both of these criteria, and in that case will print a warning and will not modify the dependency.

Usage

First, install this gem as a bundler plugin. I haven't packaged a gem yet, so the best thing to do right now is bundle from git:

bundle plugin install --git=https://github.com/flavorjones/bundler-as_of --branch=main bundler-as_of

(Note that bundler plugins are project-specific and are installed into the .bundler subdirectory.)

Second, pick a date and run bundle install:

BUNDLE_AS_OF=2013-11-11 bundle install

You should see something like this as the output:

$ BUNDLE_AS_OF=2013-09-22 bundle install
NOTE: bundler-as_of: bundling dependencies as of 2013-09-22 ...
NOTE: bundler-as_of: resolving xml-focus [">= 0"] to 0.0.1 released on 2013-08-07
NOTE: bundler-as_of: resolving rake [">= 0"] to 10.1.0 released on 2013-06-20
NOTE: bundler-as_of: resolving rspec [">= 0"] to 2.14.1 released on 2013-07-11
NOTE: bundler-as_of: resolving nokogiri [">= 0"] to 1.6.0 released on 2013-06-10
NOTE: bundler-as_of: resolving rspec-core ["~> 2.14.0"] to 2.14.5 released on 2013-08-14
NOTE: bundler-as_of: resolving rspec-expectations ["~> 2.14.0"] to 2.14.2 released on 2013-08-15
NOTE: bundler-as_of: resolving rspec-mocks ["~> 2.14.0"] to 2.14.3 released on 2013-08-09
NOTE: bundler-as_of: resolving mini_portile ["~> 0.5.0"] to 0.5.1 released on 2013-07-07
NOTE: bundler-as_of: resolving diff-lcs ["< 2.0", ">= 1.1.3"] to 1.2.4 released on 2013-04-21
Fetching gem metadata from https://rubygems.org/.......
Resolving dependencies...
Using rake 10.1.0
Using bundler 2.2.30
Using diff-lcs 1.2.4
Using mini_portile 0.5.1
Using rspec-mocks 2.14.3
Using rspec-core 2.14.5
Using rspec-expectations 2.14.2
Using nokogiri 1.6.0
Using rspec 2.14.1
Using xml-focus 0.0.1
Bundle complete! 9 Gemfile dependencies, 10 gems now installed.
Use `bundle info [gemname]` to see where a bundled gem is installed.

Tips

Once you find a date that works, you may want to use something like direnv to "remember" the date by automatically loading that environment variable when you cd into the project directory.

This Gem Won't Help You With ...

... finding and using the right Ruby version

bundler-as_of only resolves gem dependencies as of the given date, and doesn't do anything (yet?) to make sure you're using a version of Ruby that existed on that date.

A manual alternative is to use a table of Ruby version release dates and then run everything in the Ruby dockerhub OCI images for the particular version you want to use.

Contributing

Bug reports and pull requests are welcome on GitHub at https://github.com/flavorjones/bundler-as_of. This project is intended to be a safe, welcoming space for collaboration, and contributors are expected to adhere to the code of conduct.

License

The gem is available as open source under the terms of the MIT License.

Code of Conduct

Everyone interacting in the Bundler::AsOf project's codebases, issue trackers, chat rooms and mailing lists is expected to follow the code of conduct.