Published 2024-07-26.
Time to read: 1 minutes.

This page is part of the ruby collection.

You can visualize the dependencies between Ruby gems by using the bundle graph subcommand. This subcommand generates a PNG file of the dependencies of current Ruby project as a dependency graph.

The bundle graph subcommand is not installed by default. Instead, it is implemented as a Bundler plugin. The git project is here.

For the curious, see the list of known Bundler plugins .

If you attempt to run bundle graph without installing the plugin, you will get the following error:

Shell

$ bundle graph
Could not find command "graph".

Installation

Bundler plugins can either be installed globally or for specific projects. I think the plugin is best installed globally, not per-project. Follow these instructions for a global installation.

The documented installation instructions are incomplete. This article provides more information. Here is the help message:

Shell

$ bundler plugin help install
Usage:
  bundler plugin install PLUGINS

Options:
  [--source=URL of the RubyGems source to fetch the plugin from]
  [--version=The version of the plugin to fetch]
  [--git=URL of the git repo to fetch from]
  [--local-git=Path of the local git repo to fetch from (deprecated)]
  [--branch=The git branch to checkout]
  [--ref=The git revision to check out]
  [--path=Path of a local gem to directly use]

Description:
  Install plugins either from the rubygems source provided (with --source option), from a git source provided with
  --git, or a local path provided with --path. If no sources are provided, it uses Gem.sources 

Installing the graph plugin for Bundler requires three steps.

Globally install the ruby-graphviz gem.

Shell

$ gem install ruby-graphviz
Fetching ruby-graphviz-1.2.5.gem

You need to install GraphViz (https://graphviz.org) to use this Gem.

For more information about Ruby-Graphviz :
* Doc: https://rdoc.info/github/glejeune/Ruby-Graphviz
* Sources: https://github.com/glejeune/Ruby-Graphviz
* Issues: https://github.com/glejeune/Ruby-Graphviz/issues

Successfully installed ruby-graphviz-1.2.5
Parsing documentation for ruby-graphviz-1.2.5
Installing ri documentation for ruby-graphviz-1.2.5
Done installing documentation for ruby-graphviz after 5 seconds
1 gem installed

Install the graphviz dependency. On WSL/Ubuntu I installed it like this:

Shell

$ sudo apt install graphviz

To install the Bundler plugin globally, first move to your home directory, then type the following. If you instead type this incantation from a Ruby project, the plugin will only be installed for that project:

Shell

$ cd

$ bundler plugin install bundler-graph
Fetching gem metadata from https://rubygems.org/.
Resolving dependencies...
Fetching bundler-graph 0.2.1
Installing bundler-graph 0.2.1
Installed plugin bundler-graph 

Running Bundle Graph

With the bundler-graph plugin installed, it can be invoked from the command line as follows:

Shell

$ bundle graph
/my/current/directory/gem_graph.png 

The plugin creates a PNG image called gem_graph.png. To view it in WSL, type:

Shell

$ explorer.exe gem_graph.png

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