title: Chef Shared Ruby Functions or libraries
body: <p>We have a local Ruby Library that we include in a lot of our ruby projects.  It contains a lot of configuration information that would be extremely useful to use in our chef scripts.  This allows us to put all of our configuration in one place, so we don't have to make multiple places everytime we change a database etc.  Trying to keep the code DRY.  That being said, the code are straight ruby functions, not in the chef DSL.</p>
  
  <p>I have been trying to pull the library into Chef, but have found it very difficult.  Which makes me think I'm going against some sort of pattern.</p>
  
  <p>I have tried and didn't work.
      - Add the Ruby Code via require_relative and includes.
      - Add the Ruby Code to it's own cookbook, then wrap the cookbook.
      - Create a local ruby gem (not retrievable via rubygems, or other repo)</p>
  
  <p>What worked:
      - Copying and pasting the code into a cookbook. (but it's not sharable.)</p>
  
  <p>My real question, what is the best way to share this ruby code library amongst many cookbooks?  Depending on the best way, how do you actually do it?, or pointers in the right direction.</p>
  
  <p>thanks.
  myles.</p>