Where are "asset group" gems installed?

Question

I have some gems that are only used for the asset pipeline. One example is:

gem 'jquery-datatables-rails', github: 'rweng/jquery-datatables-rails'

Unfortunately, I can not find exactly where this gem is installed. "gem list --local" does not even show it.

I need to fix it, because I am trying to use Bootstrap styling in datatables, which is allowed in the latest version. But the version of datatables included with the gem is old.

Does anybody know where these gems go? I am very, very confused by the asset pipeline.

Answer 1

The asset pipeline and Bundler grouping has nothing to do with where gems are installed on your system. You can always run bundle open gemname to open the source of a Gem in your $EDITOR and make quick changes (i.e. for debugging). If you want to actually include changes in a release, though, you are going to want to fork the Gem and make your changes there, then specify the git path in your Gemfile.

As a side note, make sure you run bundle install (or really, just bundle) after making changes to your Gemfile to ensure the Gems all get installed.

Answer 2

I such cases, I fork the project on github and make my changes, and adjust my Gemfiles accordingly. This also makes it reuseable in different projects.