From: Robert Klemme <bob.news@...>
Date: 2004-01-07T21:56:47+09:00
Subject: Re: Compression (besides Huffman) and Ruby


"Jamis Buck" <jgb3@email.byu.edu> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:3FFC0099.2080408@email.byu.edu...
> Robert Klemme wrote:
>
> >
> >But wouldn't it bettern then to implement it in C (or use an existing
> >implementation)?  I mean, C *is* portable.
>
> Very true.  Generally, C *is* portable, and in general, such things
> should be (and are) written in C.  However, C is *not* portable when a
> module is not available as a pre-compiled binary for a particular
> platform, and the user does not have access to a C compiler (or is not a
> programmer and is not confident compiling their own module).  In such
> cases, the value of simply dropping the module into the Ruby path is
> quite high.

Another reasonable conclusion is to include a ruby module for such a basic
thing as (de)compression into the std distribution.  At least the cygwin
distribution includes Zlib:

irb(main):001:0> require 'zlib'
=> true
irb(main):002:0> ObjectSpace.each_object( Class ) {|cl| p cl if
/zip|zlib/i =~ cl.name }
Zlib::GzipReader
Zlib::GzipWriter
Zlib::GzipFile::LengthError
Zlib::GzipFile::CRCError
Zlib::GzipFile::NoFooter
Zlib::GzipFile::Error
Zlib::GzipFile
Zlib::Inflate
Zlib::Deflate
Zlib::ZStream
Zlib::VersionError
Zlib::BufError
Zlib::MemError
Zlib::StreamError
Zlib::DataError
Zlib::NeedDict
Zlib::StreamEnd
Zlib::Error
=> 358
irb(main):003:0>

Does that help? :-)

> Anyway, I hope that has clarified my position.  I'm not trying to start
> a flame war on the merits of C modules versus pure Ruby modules (or even
> wxWindows and FOX--those were just examples from my own personal
> experience), so please don't be too vehement with any opposing opinions.
:)

No offense taken.

Kind regards

    robert