How To Check Ruby Version On Mac

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If you are a developer working with Ruby on a Mac, it’s important to know which version of Ruby you have installed on your system. Having the correct Ruby version can be crucial for compatibility with various gems and libraries, as well as for ensuring optimal performance and stability of your Ruby applications.

In this blog post, we will walk you through the process of checking your Ruby version on a Mac in just a few simple steps.

Step 1: Open Terminal

First, you’ll need to open the Terminal application on your Mac. You can do this by either:

  • Searching for “Terminal” in Spotlight (located in the top-right corner of your screen), or
  • Finding Terminal in the “Utilities” folder within the “Applications” directory.

Step 2: Check Your Ruby Version

With Terminal open, enter the following command and press Enter:

    ruby -v

This command requests information about your installed Ruby version. The output should look something like this:

ruby 2.6.3p62 (2019-04-16 revision 67580) [universal.x86_64-darwin19]

The first part of the output (ruby 2.6.3 in this example) indicates the version of Ruby installed on your system.

Step 3: Update Ruby (Optional)

If you find that your Ruby version is outdated or incompatible with your development requirements, you might want to consider updating it. There are several ways to do this, but one popular method is to use a Ruby version manager such as RVM or rbenv.

For example, to install RVM and use it to update Ruby, you can follow these steps:

  1. Install RVM by running the following command in Terminal:
    2.         curl -sSL https://get.rvm.io | bash -s stable
  2. Reload your terminal by closing and reopening it, or by running this command:
    3.         source ~/.rvm/scripts/rvm
  3. Install the latest stable version of Ruby using RVM:
    4.         rvm install ruby --latest
  4. Set this newly installed version as the default Ruby version for your system:
    5.         rvm use ruby --default

Once you’ve completed these steps, you can run ruby -v again to confirm that your Ruby version has been updated.

Conclusion

Checking your Ruby version on a Mac is a simple process that requires just a single Terminal command. Knowing your Ruby version is essential to ensure compatibility with libraries and tools, and to maintain optimal performance and stability in your applications.

If you need to update your Ruby version, consider using a version manager like RVM or rbenv, which makes it easy to manage multiple Ruby versions on your system and switch between them as needed.