Ruby debugger installation help !

Question

I installer ruby-debugger but even after that , when I try to start the rails server with "--debugger" option I get a console error saying that ruby-debugger is not installed see the logs below :-

:~/work_space/rails_apps/Bidding_sys_remaining$ sudo gem install ruby-debug    <<<<<<<

Building native extensions.  This could take a while...
Building native extensions.  This could take a while...
Successfully installed columnize-0.3.2
Successfully installed linecache-0.43
Successfully installed ruby-debug-base-0.10.4
Successfully installed ruby-debug-0.10.4
4 gems installed
Installing ri documentation for columnize-0.3.2...
Installing ri documentation for linecache-0.43...
Installing ri documentation for ruby-debug-base-0.10.4...
Installing ri documentation for ruby-debug-0.10.4...
Installing RDoc documentation for columnize-0.3.2...
Installing RDoc documentation for linecache-0.43...
Installing RDoc documentation for ruby-debug-base-0.10.4...
Installing RDoc documentation for ruby-debug-0.10.4...

:~/work_space/rails_apps/Bidding_sys_remaining$ 
:~/work_space/rails_apps/Bidding_sys_remaining$ rails server --debugger
=> Booting WEBrick
=> Rails 3.0.1 application starting in development on http://0.0.0.0:3000
=> Call with -d to detach
=> Ctrl-C to shutdown server
You need to install ruby-debug to run the server in debugging mode. With gems, use 'gem  install ruby-debug'

Exiting

This is the first time I'm trying to use the rails debugger.
Also any suggestions for links, to get help for getting started with rails debugger any guides for newbies ??

Answer 1

Make sure you include the gem in the Gemfile

gem 'ruby-debug' # for ruby 1.8.7+    
gem 'ruby-debug19' # for ruby 1.9.2+

and then run bundle install

Update:

You can also add this to your Gemfile and it will take care of both ruby versions.

  gem 'ruby-debug19', :require => 'ruby-debug', :platforms => :mri_19
  gem 'ruby-debug', :platforms => :mri_18

Answer 2

Just to hop on to what George said, since the Gemfile supports it, you might want to put it in a group, since you likely don't want ruby-debug in production.

group :development do
  gem 'ruby-debug19' # or ruby-debug for 1.8.7
end