From: Gavin Kistner <gavin@...>
Date: 2004-10-13T12:17:16+09:00
Subject: eRuby for Windows

I have a situation where I need to create/write static web pages using 
some non-trivial logic.
(This is separate from a web server.)

The PageTemplate project[1] looked cool, but the simple syntax doesn't 
account for the kinds of tests I need to do.

(In short it's:

HTML chunk
foo.each{ |bar|
	HTML chunk
}
HTML chunk
foo.each{ |bar|
	const.each{ |jim|
		conditional output based on bar.bork?(jim)
	}
	a bunch of conditional output based on return values
	of methods on bar, including special processing of that content
}

Right now it's working, but it's a series of nasty:

file << %Q{ ... }
and
file << <<-ENDHTMLCHUNK

type constructs. It's horrific to look at, and certainly not easy to 
figure out what's going on for the ancillary ruby-ignorant developers 
who may want to tweak the HTML.

eRuby seemed like the ideal solution...but the solution needs to run on 
Windows, and I can't seem to find a windows binary for eRuby.

1) Is there an eRuby binary for Windows? (The modruby website says no, 
but perhaps it's outdated.) [This also needs to run 'natively' on 
Windows...a cygwin type solution is no good, even if eRuby works 
there.]

2) Is there a simple ruby-based eRuby-type template system, that lets 
me intersperse arbitrary ruby code inside and around the HTML chunks I 
want to output?


[1] http://coolnamehere.com/products/pagetemplate/
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