From: Michael Neumann <mneumann@...>
Date: 2007-09-22T04:01:05+09:00
Subject: [ANN] CplusRuby - Gluing C and Ruby

Hi all,

I am proud to announce my latest project called CplusRuby.
Below I pasted it's README for further explanation.
Alternatively read the following blog article:

http://www.ntecs.de/blog/articles/2007/09/21/cplusruby-gluing-c-and-ruby

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CplusRuby - Glue C and Ruby together (OO-like)
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COPYRIGHT

   Copyright (c) 2007 by Michael Neumann (mneumann@ntecs.de).
   All rights reserved.

LICENSE

   Ruby License.

ABOUT

   With CplusRuby you can define custom C structures from within Ruby and
   wrap them easily in a Ruby class. You can as well define C functions
   that can access this structure easily. CplusRuby generates setter/getter
   methods for every property and wrapper methods for the C functions.

   The purpose is speed! The C functions can access the C-structure,
   which is much faster than accessing instance variables. Also, the C
   functions can call each other directly. This is *much* faster than
   invoking a method in Ruby. As wrappers are generated, the Ruby-side
   can access all C-structures and functions as well.

   I started to write CplusRuby to implement a high-performance pulsed
   neural network simulator. My existing C++ implementation suffered
   from - well - C++ :). This enables me to write the core algorithms
   in C or C++ and do all the other non performance-critical tasks in
   Ruby.

EXAMPLE

   Take a look at the following example. You should also take a look
   at the generated C source file (inspire.c). Note that properties
   are actually members of a C-struct, not instance variables, and as
   such, their access from C is very fast. As calling a method is quite
   slow in Ruby, method defined in C (method_c) can be called directly
   from C, which again is very fast!

     # example.rb
     require 'cplusruby'

     class NeuralEntity < CplusRuby
       property :id
     end

     class Neuron < NeuralEntity
       property :potential,        :float
       property :last_spike_time,  :float
       property :pre_synapses,     :value

       method_c :stimulate, %(float at, float weight), %{
         // this is C code
         selfc->potential += at*weight;
       }

       def initialize
         self.pre_synapses = []
       end
     end

     # generate C file, compile it and load the .so
     CplusRuby.evaluate("inspire.cc", "-O3", "-lstdc++")

     if __FILE__ == $0
       n = Neuron.new
       n.id = "n1"
       n.potential = 1.0
       n.stimulate(1.0, 2.0)
       p n.potential # => 3.0
     end

END