Rubygems don't load in IRB or Rails Console

Question

Using RVM on OSX, I'm trying to use ruby gems. However, a

require 'rubygems'

returns false in IRB and Rails console. Going through similar questions here, I figured it might have to do with the Gem path vs Gem env.

MAC-AC028761:Ruby ac028761$ irb
1.9.3-p429 :001 > require 'rubygems'
 => false
1.9.3-p429 :002 > Gem.path
 => ["/Users/ac028761/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p429", "/Users/ac028761/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p429@global"]
1.9.3-p429 :003 > exit
MAC-AC028761:Ruby ac028761$ gem env
RubyGems Environment:
  - RUBYGEMS VERSION: 1.8.25
  - RUBY VERSION: 1.9.3 (2013-05-15 patchlevel 429) [x86_64-darwin12.3.0]
  - INSTALLATION DIRECTORY: /Users/ac028761/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p429
  - RUBY EXECUTABLE: /Users/ac028761/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.3-p429/bin/ruby
  - EXECUTABLE DIRECTORY: /Users/ac028761/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p429/bin
  - RUBYGEMS PLATFORMS:
        - ruby
    - x86_64-darwin-12
  - GEM PATHS:
     - /Users/ac028761/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p429
     - /Users/ac028761/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p429@global
  - GEM CONFIGURATION:
     - :update_sources => true
     - :verbose => true
     - :benchmark => false
     - :backtrace => false
     - :bulk_threshold => 1000
  - REMOTE SOURCES:
     - http://rubygems.org/

Both the 'Gem.path' and the GEM PATHS on 'gem env' are the same, so that's not the issue. Can't figure out how to fix this.

Answer 1

Since Ruby 1.9 rubygems is automatically required by the interpreter when it starts, so there is no need to require it again.

$ irb
irb> $LOADED_FEATURES.grep /rubygems.rb/
# => ["/usr/lib/ruby/1.9.1/rubygems.rb"]
irb> defined?(Gem)
# => "constant"

Answer 2

require may return false if the file that you are trying to require is already required.