Re: Ruby and Windows

"Regina Goodwin" <[e-mail]> wrote in message news:<icCt9.728$[e-mail]>...
> When I open up Ruby on my Windows Desktop and I write code, how do I get it
> to compile?  I am new to Ruby and programming.
> 
> Help

There's no need to compile it because it's a script language. The Ruby
files work just like VBScript files; you can just write your script
using Notepad, save the file with a ".rb" extension, and double-click
it to run it. I'm also using Ruby with Windows, and I'm fairly
inexperienced at it, so I feel your pain because I went through your
confusion at the beginning. Have you already downloaded and run the
Ruby for Windows installation? You should be able to click
"Start>Programs>Ruby" and see a number of programs, like "Interactive
Ruby Shell," "RubyBook Help," and "RubyWin." If you don't even see
that, then you need to download the installation and run it. Here's
one place to get it:
http://www.s-direktnet.de/homepages/neumann/rb_prgs/
If you do have Ruby installed and you can see those programs, I found
the easiest place to start learning Ruby is the "RubyWin" program.
Click Start>Programs>Ruby>RubyWin to start the RubyWin program. You
can use this program to write and run your Ruby scripts. For example,
let's say you've written a Ruby script and saved it as an *.rb file,
and now you want to run it. To do so, click Ruby>Run File and browse
to the file, then click Open and the script will be run. If there are
errors, you'll be able to see the errors that are occurring. You can
now open that file with File>Open, fix the errors and save the file,
then click Ruby>Run File and browse to the file again to re-run it.
You can also double-click on an *.rb file directly and it will run,
because the Ruby installation makes an association with the ".rb" file
extension. However, if your Ruby code just does something like write
the word "test" back to the screen (for example, if your Ruby script
just has this one line of code: puts 'test'), then you'll just see a
momentary flash as the Ruby shell quickly opens, runs, and closes. It
can be confusing because it seems like nothing's happening. Also, if
there are errors, you won't be able to read them because the shell
closes right away. That's why I find it better to run files using the
RubyWin program.
Here's a basic example that shows how a Ruby script can actually do
things like create Windows files. Try putting these two lines in a
text file and save the file with the name test.rb:
aFile=File.new("c:\\temp\\test.txt", "w")
aFile.close
When you double-click on the "test.rb" file, it should create the
"test.txt" file in your temp directory.