From: "Berger, Daniel" <Daniel.Berger@...>
Date: 2005-06-29T23:57:46+09:00
Subject: Re: Smart(er) platform detection

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Matt Mower [mailto:matt.mower@gmail.com] 
> Sent: Wednesday, June 29, 2005 8:49 AM
> To: ruby-talk ML
> Subject: Re: Smart(er) platform detection
> 
> 
> On 6/29/05, Daniel Berger <Daniel.Berger@qwest.com> wrote:
> > > It seems like this provides a lot better information than 
> I can get 
> > > from RUBY_PLATFORM but is in the form of a C extension 
> which doesn't 
> > > suit me.  It might be exactly right for some other folks though.
> > >
> > If it helps soothe your mind, the Win32 version is pure Ruby. :)
> > 
> 
> I'm not clear what this means.  Can it be distributed as a 
> gem for use on Windows ,Unix, and other platforms?

It means there's a separate source file and installation instructions
for Windows.  The Windows version, in the file windows.rb, uses the
Win32OLE package and is good only on the Windows platform.  The *nix
version, in the unix.c file, is used for everything else, and must be
built using the "ruby extconf.rb; make; make site-install" routine.

As for a gem, I haven't made one because of a bug (I think) within
rubygems when it comes to C extensions for packages with nested names,
e.g. "sys/uname" - it puts the .so file in the wrong directory.  In the
case of "sys-uname", it ends up sticking the shared object under "lib"
instead of "lib/sys".

Clear as mud?

Regards,

Dan