From: Jason Roelofs <jameskilton@...>
Date: 2008-03-27T23:48:03+09:00
Subject: Re: embedding ruby (*not* extending)

I'll expound on Stephan's post about Rice.

Embedding Ruby with Rice is very easy:

    int main(int argc, char * argv[])
    {
      Rice::VM vm(argc, argv);
      vm.run()
    }

You've now got access to the Ruby VM in your application. You can use
all of the normal Ruby C API calls, or you can use Rice's C++ API to
get a hold of Ruby information. A couple of examples (not tested, may
not be exactly correct):

Calling your global (Kernel) method fact():

Ruby:

    def fact(a, b)
        ...
    end

C++:

    int result = Module(rb_mKernel).call("fact", 1, 2);

Or to get a hold of a class defined in your Ruby code

Ruby:

    class MyClass
        ....
     end

C++

    // There's a better way to do this, I can't find it right now
    Rice:Class myClass =
Class(Module(rb_mKernel).const_get("MyClass").call("new"));
    myClass.call("myFunc");

And when you need to expose C++ classes into Ruby, that's trivially
easy (you've probably looked at luabind, it's similar):

   define_class<ClassType>("MyClass")
      .define_method("method_name", &ClassType::method);

and in your Ruby you can now:

   m = MyClass.new
   m.method_name

Hope that helps. If you give this library a try any questions you have
can be sent to me, Paul Brannan (pbrannan@atdesk.com) or join
#ruby-rice on freenode.

Jason R.

On Thu, Mar 27, 2008 at 9:46 AM, Marc Heiler <shevegen@linuxmail.org> wrote:
> > There is just enough information on the first version of PickAxe to
>  > get you started.
>
>  I think I disagree on this aspect. Getting started probably means very
>  sparse documentation, I just hope that people that are knowledgable
>  about it and did so, write a little bit about it. I even found some very
>  good blogs or entries therein explaining not-so-often-used tricks in the
>  Ruby-C land.  ;-)
>  --
>  Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.
>
>