[ANN] Cplus2Ruby - Gluing C++ and Ruby together in an OO manner

Hi,

A major rewrite and lots of new features of Cplus2Ruby lead to a 1.0.0
release, actually the first release ever :)
And yes, Cplus2Ruby is different from CplusRuby.

Regards,

   Michael

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Cplus2Ruby - Gluing C++ and Ruby together in an OO manner
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COPYRIGHT

   Copyright (c) 2007, 2008 by Michael Neumann ([e-mail]).
   All rights reserved.

LICENSE

   Ruby License.

ABOUT

   Cplus2Ruby (or "C++Ruby") makes it easy to mix Ruby and C++ in
   a seamless way. You can use the power of the Ruby object model
   and where needed switch to C++ methods for ultimate performance!

   Cplus2Ruby generates getter and setter methods for C++ properties,
   and wrapper methods so that you can call your C++ methods from
   Ruby without writing a single line of C++ wrapper code. In the same
   way stub methods enable your C++ methods to directly call a Ruby
   method.

   As mentioned above shortly, the main purpose of Cplus2Ruby is speed.
   Accessing instance variables in Ruby is somewhat slow compared to
   accessing an C++ attribute. Calling a C++ method is as well *a lot*
   faster than calling a Ruby method. Cplus2Ruby now allows you to
   write your performance critical methods in C++, which can call other
   C++ methods and access C++ attributes with native C++ performance.

INSTALLATION

   gem install cplus2ruby

DEPENDENCIES

   * gem install facets
   * C++ compiler and make

EXAMPLE

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

     $LOAD_PATH.unshift './lib'
     require 'rubygems'
     require 'cplus2ruby'

     class NeuralEntity; cplus2ruby
       property :id
     end

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

       method :stimulate, {:at => :float},{:weight => :float}, %{
         // This is C++ Code
         @potential += at*weight;

         // call a Ruby method
         log(@potential);
       }

       stub_method :log, {:pot => :float}

       def log(pot)
         puts "log(#{pot})"
       end

       def initialize
         self.pre_synapses = []
       end
     end

     if __FILE__ == $0
       #
       # Generate C++ code, compile and load shared library.
       #
       Cplus2Ruby.startup('work/neural')

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

FEATURES

   You can disable the substitution of "@" to "this->" in the generated
   C++ source code with:

       Cplus2Ruby.settings :substitute_iv_ats => false

   A method signature to return a value (in our case an integer) looks like:

     method :abc, {:arg1 => :int}, {:arg2 => :float}, {:returns => :int}, %{
       ...
     }

   Mixins can be used:

     module Mixin; cplus2ruby
       property :a
     end

     class C; cplus2ruby
       include Mixin
     end

   They don't generate a C++ class, instead get inlined into the class
   into which they are mixed in.

   You can use type aliases:

     Cplus2Ruby.add_type_alias 'MyIntegerType' => 'unsigned int'

   After that Cplus2Ruby knows about this type and how to convert it
   (if it knows how to convert the 'unsigned int' type) and you can
   use it wherever you want.

   Inline, static and virtual methods can be declared like this:

     method :abc, {:a1 => :int}, %{
       body
     }, :inline => true, :static => true, :virtual => true

   There is also a static_method short-cut for static methods, so instead
   of:

     method :abc, {:a1 => :int}, %{
       ...
     }, :static => true

   you can write:

     static_method :abc, {:a1 => :int}, %{
       ...
     }

   To mark a method in a class hierarchy forever as virtual, you can
   write:

     virtual :method1, :method2

   You can also define a class that is purely used from within C++.
   If you don't want to generate wrapper code etc. specify:

     cplus2ruby :no_wrap => true

   You can use Strings, Symbols and Classes for types in signatures or
   in property declarations. There is no distinction between Strings and
   Symbols. If you specify a class, it must be known to Cplus2Ruby,
   either explicitly:

     class A
       cplus2ruby # marks it known to Cplus2Ruby
     end

   Or using inheritance:

     class A
       cplus2ruby # marks it known to Cplus2Ruby
     end

     class B < A  # implicit by inheritance
     end

   Global code (mostly type declarations etc.) can be added as shown
   below:

     Cplus2Ruby << %q{
       #include <assert.h>
       #include <math.h>

       #define real_exp expf
       #define real_fabs fabsf

       #define THROW(str) rb_raise(rb_eRuntimeError, str)
     }

   Compilation flags etc.:

     Cplus2Ruby.startup(module_name, force_compilation, cflags, ldflags)

   For example:

     #
     # force_compilation => true regenerates and recompiles the
     # C++ code every time.
     #
     Cplus2Ruby.startup("work/mymodule", true, '-DNDEBUG -Winline 
-Wall', '-lm')

BUGS

   * I get an "illegal instruction" (sig 4) when the C++ code is compiled
     with -pthread. This is the default in the ports on FreeBSD 7.0 even
     when WITH_PTHREAD is defined. It is somehow related to the GC,
     because when I disable the GC everything is fine (except memory
     usage :).

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