From: rise <rise@...>
Date: 2001-05-22T13:45:00+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:15521] Re: Idea for C extension?

On Mon, 21 May 2001, Hal E. Fulton wrote:

> I'm about to write a Ruby extension in C as an exercise.
> Something using a reasonably wide range of the C API
> but not too difficult a problem. Any suggestions for what
> I might do?

The Bind resolver library is pretty standard and quite useful for doing
network programming with slightly heavier DNS requirements than the
*Socket methods support.  It's reasonably simple, but makes use of
pointers and structs enough to make for an interesting project.

A firewall control library for Linux (ipchains or iptables) or *BSD (ipf)
would probably be interesting as well, but I've never dealt with the API
for either.  I know ipchains was successfully SWIGged for Perl, so doing
the same for Ruby might give you a good starting place.

> Might as well put that effort in a direction that might be
> expandable into something useful.

Couldn't agree more, that's why I'm working on wrapping the Libnet
portable packet generation library for Ruby (useful for values of useful
including "interesting").

-- 
Jonathan Conway 	   The thing about Unix is that all the hoops are
rise@knavery.net           flaming, so at least you know where they are...