From: Aredridel <aredridel@...>
Date: 2005-03-26T09:46:57+09:00
Subject: Re: loading "plugins"

On Sat, 26 Mar 2005 03:29:50 +0900, Hans Fugal <fugalh@xmission.com> wrote:
> I am writing a log analyzer (hans.fugal.net/src/clog) that uses a sort
> of plugin (I call them agents) which is basically a class that gets
> instantiated and then called to do work. I want to include various
> agents with the distribution.
> 
> Where should the files end up? How should I discover the agents?
> 
> The sysadmin will be able to specify a directory (or directories) that
> contain his own agents, in addition to the included agents. I can scan
> that directory for .rb files and load them. That part works. But I don't
> want to make the sysadmin specify where the standard agents are in the
> config file - that should be implied. "require 'clog/agents/*'" would
> express what I want to do, although that isn't valid. I don't want to
> hardcode a path to /usr/local/lib/site_ruby/whatever, either.
> 
> Ultimately, the sysadmin should refer to the agents with a simple
> one-word name, e.g. Postfix or Bogofilter.
> 

The unix way would be to have /usr/share/yourapp/plugins/FooClass.rb
be the FooClass plugin, and perhaps optionally also search a user's
home directory, ~/.yourapp/plugins/FooClass.rb

Simple, concise, understandable and scalable.