Question

I am trying to contribute to the opensource project jquery-datatables-rails. But it puzzles me as how it works. I have basic understanding of how to create gem. It seems like the project just simplifies the path references but nothing more. The four steps listed to install are

Add to the assets group in your Gemfile:

gem 'jquery-datatables-rails'

Install the gem:

bundle install

Add the JavaScript to application.js:

//= require dataTables/jquery.dataTables

Add the stylesheets to application.css:

*= require dataTables/jquery.dataTables

But I don’t understand how Rails knows where to find dataTables folder and why we use jquery.dataTables to reference the file/class. The code is easy to understand, but the file organization confuses me so much. Is there any writing on topics related to my confusion?
Thanks.

Update:
Just found this great documentation on Rails Engine: http://edgeguides.rubyonrails.org/engines.html

Answer 1

By default Rails asset pipeline searches for the files in app/assets/, lib/assets, and vendor/assets of the Rails application. But this gem is a Rails engine, and it adds path of its own assets to default assets paths. It has its own vendor/assets.