From: Joel VanderWerf <vjoel@...>
Date: 2008-10-05T00:52:10+09:00
Subject: Re: handling tcl files in ruby

salamond wrote:
> Hi, all.
> 
> Here's the problem occurred to me.
> 
> I'm having several tcl files like this:
> 
> data {
>     name {jarod}
>     id {1131321}
> }
> 
> data {
>     name {hhhh}
>     id {2929292}
> }
> 
> I defined a couple of proc like proc data, to auto generate arrays for me.
> (arrays in tcl is like hash in ruby)
> I just source file_name in my tcl_project, so that those arrays are
> generated automatcially.
> 
> because of this, I might have something like :
> data {
>     name {jarod}
>     id {123455}
> }
> source a.tcl ;# a.tcl is another data file
> 
> 
> Now I have to let ruby understand all these data files.
> 
> Options that I'm having:
> 1 translate all data files to xml, let ruby parse xml files
>     I've already tried the first one, but the result isn't so good,
> new xml files are hard to understand and maintain.
> 2 write my own ruby parser,
>     I've tried google, there seems to be a couple of ruby parser on
> rubyforge. not look into it till now.
> 3 call tcl in ruby to parse all those files.
>     I've found that there's no tcl_array_to_ruby_hash function
> available in ruby/tk package.
> 
> I think the best way is to keep the current format, but I'm not sure
> if it is the right thing to do.
> so does any body have experiences on this kind of staff or any
> suggestions or ideas?

Suggestion: look for a json (or yaml) emitter in tcl, or write one (it 
should be easy--a limited ruby json emitter is about 50 LOC). Dump your 
tcl structures to json, and that can be loaded in ruby using any of the 
ruby json libs.

-- 
       vjoel : Joel VanderWerf : path berkeley edu : 510 665 3407