Adding a directory to $LOAD_PATH (Ruby)

The Ruby load path is very commonly seen written as $: , but just because it is short, does not make it better. If you prefer clarity to cleverness, or if brevity for its own sake makes you itchy, you needn't do it just because everyone else is. Say hello to ...

$LOAD_PATH

... and say goodbye to ...

# I don't quite understand what this is doing...$:

I would say go with $:.unshift File.dirname(__FILE__) over the other one, simply because I've seen much more usage of it in code than the $LOAD_PATH one, and it's shorter too!

I'm not too fond on the 'quick-and-dirty' way.Anyone new to Ruby will be pondering what $:. is.

I find this more obvious.

libdir = File.dirname(__FILE__)$LOAD_PATH.unshift(libdir) unless $LOAD_PATH.include?(libdir)

Or if I care about having the full path...

libdir = File.expand_path(File.dirname(__FILE__))$LOAD_PATH.unshift(libdir) unless $LOAD_PATH.include?(libdir)

UPDATE 2009/09/10

As of late I've been doing the following:

$:.unshift(File.expand_path(File.dirname(__FILE__))) unless    $:.include?(File.dirname(__FILE__)) || $:.include?(File.expand_path(File.dirname(__FILE__)))

I've seen it in a whole bunch of different ruby projects while browsing GitHub.

Seems to be the convention?