From: emilie3012@... (Steve Hart)
Date: 2003-04-14T11:16:08+09:00
Subject: Re: using ruby reflection to generate code

ptkwt@shell1.aracnet.com (Phil Tomson) wrote in message news:<b7c6an01vb3@enews4.newsguy.com>...
> In article <20030413004111.A80880@beaver.net>,
> Doug Beaver  <doug@beaver.net> wrote:
> >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
> 
> I'm not currently doing this, but I do kind of want to be able to convert 
> RHDL to VHDL and/or Verilog which would entail some similar effort 
> (actually, it would probalby be harder).
> 
> At any rate, I really would be interested in seeing your code to generate 
> objective C and/or C++, can you post this or submit it to the RAA?
> 
> Phil

Hi,
I'm using Ruby as a scripting tool for an OpenGL app, Would it be
(theroertically) possible to use reflection to 'reconstruct' the
original ruby script. The reason I ask is that I use rb_load() to
initialise a Scenegraph within my app. The user can then change the
Scenegraph which I then need to save out again as an updated script.
Has anyone done something similar?