circular dependency thrown in version 0.4.4 during asset precompile from minimal Rails app

[johnkolen]

I'm trying to use css_splitter gem to break up the large combined CSS file for a Rails app. Unfortunately, something is not right as I'm running into the circular dependency issue regarding require_tree and require_self that should have disappeared post version 0.4.0. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Here's how to replicate the issue

1. Created a fresh rails 4.1.6 app

2. added to Gemfile
   gem 'css_splitter'

3. added to application.css

   foo { width: 100; }

4. created application_spilt2.css

   /*
   *= require 'application'
   */

5. added to initializers/assets.rb
   Rails.application.config.assets.precompile += %w( application_split2.css )

$ rake assets:precompile
Sprockets::CircularDependencyError: /home/jkolen/Splitter/sp1/app/assets/stylesheets/application.css has already been required
/usr/local/rvm/gems/ruby-2.1.2@splitter_test/gems/sprockets-2.12.4/lib/sprockets/base.rb:392:in circular_call_protection' /usr/local/rvm/gems/ruby-2.1.2@splitter_test/gems/sprockets-2.12.4/lib/sprockets/base.rb:373:inbuild_asset'
....

I don't know if it's a red herring, but tracing through sprockets I noticed that the bundle option starts off true for application.css and then changes to false which leads to the thrown exception.

Here are the gem versions in the bundle:

Using rake 10.4.2
Using i18n 0.7.0
Using json 1.8.3
Using minitest 5.8.3
Using thread_safe 0.3.5
Using tzinfo 1.2.2
Using activesupport 4.1.6
Using builder 3.2.2
Using erubis 2.7.0
Using actionview 4.1.6
Using rack 1.5.5
Using rack-test 0.6.3
Using actionpack 4.1.6
Using mime-types 2.99
Using mail 2.6.3
Using actionmailer 4.1.6
Using activemodel 4.1.6
Using arel 5.0.1.20140414130214
Using activerecord 4.1.6
Using coffee-script-source 1.10.0
Using execjs 2.6.0
Using coffee-script 2.4.1
Using thor 0.19.1
Using railties 4.1.6
Using coffee-rails 4.0.1
Using hike 1.2.3
Using multi_json 1.11.2
Using tilt 1.4.1
Using sprockets 2.12.4
Using css_splitter 0.4.4
Using jbuilder 2.4.0
Using jquery-rails 3.1.4
Using libv8 3.16.14.13
Using bundler 1.6.2
Using sprockets-rails 2.3.3
Using rails 4.1.6
Using rdoc 4.2.1
Using ref 2.0.0
Using sass 3.2.19
Using sass-rails 4.0.5
Using sdoc 0.4.1
Using spring 1.6.1
Using sqlite3 1.3.11
Using therubyracer 0.12.2
Using turbolinks 2.5.3
Using uglifier 2.7.2

[jhilden]

Sorry, don't really have any idea. Anybody else?

[malcolm-pro]

Getting the same problem. Do you think this could be related to your comment here?

[jhilden]

it's possible. if you could provide a test app that demonstrates the problem I could take a look at it.

[malcolm-pro]

I went ahead and followed a suggestion to remove the 'require_tree .' and added 'require' statements for each file. A bit of a nuisance, but it worked.

[jhilden]

thanks for the feedback @mmcfarland-cavulus

if you have other suggestions on how to improve it, please share them