From: Eric Hodel <drbrain@...7.net>
Date: 2007-01-21T11:36:32+09:00
Subject: Re: Building extensions with Hoe

On Jan 15, 2007, at 17:53, Alex Gutteridge wrote:
> I'm developing a library that includes a C extension, so during  
> development I need to keep re-compiling the extension before testing.
>
> I'm using Hoe for packaging, so I've added the following task to my  
> Rakefile.rb which allows me to rebuild the extension using  
> extconf.rb/make. My library has a further dependency on an external  
> C library (libR), at the moment this is semi-hardcoded into the  
> script by referencing the environment variable R_HOME:
>
> desc "Uses extconf.rb and make to build the extension"
> task :build_extension do
>   Dir.chdir('ext')
>   system("ruby extconf.rb --with-R-dir=$R_HOME")
>   system("make")
>   Dir.chdir('..')
> end
>
> Two questions (I'm pretty new with Rake/Hoe so forgive me if these  
> are obvious):
>
> 1. The 'build_extension' task works fine, but seems a little hacky,  
> how do other people build extensions with Rake/Hoe?

RubyGems looks for both an extconf.rb and an 'extension' rake task.

> 2. Can I retrospectively add this task as a dependency of the  
> 'test' task, so that when I run my tests I can ensure the library  
> is freshly built?

I'm not sure how to do this with rake, but we'd accept a patch to Hoe.

-- 
Eric Hodel - drbrain@segment7.net - http://blog.segment7.net

I LIT YOUR GEM ON FIRE!