From: Doug Beaver <doug@...>
Date: 2003-04-13T13:41:14+09:00
Subject: using ruby reflection to generate code

hello,

i'm curious if anyone out there is using ruby reflection to generate
code for other languages.  i love using ruby to prototype classes and
their interactions, especially if i can't decide on a design and need to
try a few different implementations.  i'm writing lots of c++ and
objective c these days, and it's much harder to turn around and quickly
refactor class designs.

has anyone tried using ruby's reflection to prototype classes in ruby
and then render the class structure to other languages?  i've started
working along these lines so that i can call #render_objc on any object
and get back two big strings, one for the header and one for the source.
i use reflection to pull out instance variables and check their type, so
a ruby array turns into a NSMutableArray *, hash to NSMutableDictionary
*, etc, etc.  i just look at variables, classes and methods with
reflection, i don't parse the ruby code or try to do anything smart with
it yet.  the methods in the target language are just stubs.

eventually, i would like to take the ruby code inside my methods and
stick that as a comment inside the generated methods in my target
language.  then i can use ruby for RAD and generate stubs in my target
language along with ruby code in comments so i can remember what each
method was supposed to do.  then i can move through the methods, porting
the ruby code to my target language and getting a finished product more
quickly.

anyone else going down this road?  perhaps you have some advice or
pointers to examples you've found?  i'm not sure it's going to work
100%, but i'm hoping it will allow me to save time.  if anyone's
interested, i can post code once i fix some bugs and clean it up.  if i
get something useful, i'm going to try this for c++ and perl as well.

thanks,

doug

-- 
"Contrary to what most people say, the most dangerous animal in the
world is not the lion or the tiger or even the elephant.  It's a shark
riding on an elephant's back, just trampling and eating everything they
see." -- Jack Handey