From: David Ross <drossruby@...>
Date: 2004-07-20T00:48:17+09:00
Subject: Re: Compiling Ruby code


> Once in a while the question pops up if it is
> possible to compile Ruby 
> code to native machine code. The answer has always
> been no. But I keep 
> wondering how hard it would really be to make this
> possible.

The answer is really yes. Why? People say no because
of the implementation on how it is supposed to work.
It is very possible to, but it would take time.


> 
> Ruby is written in C. And when Ruby parses a Ruby
> script it converts 
> each statement to a C call. Probably the same calls
> you can use on your 
> own in a Ruby C extension. So why wouldn't it be
> possible to parse a 
> Ruby script and convert all statements to Ruby C
> code and put it in a 
> *.c file (instead of calling the Ruby C statements
> directly). This *.c 
> file can then be compiled into machine code with a C
> compiler like gcc. 

Evaluated code at runtime needs to be thought of.
There needs to be a small runtime running on top of
the compiled program.


> Am I right on this, or do I forget something
> important which makes the 
> above quite hard to do?

Just very hard to do and no one wants to bother with
creating it. Which is why I emailed "Ruby
specification" on the mailing list about creating
rubycc. --David Ross


		
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