From: ptkwt@... (Phil Tomson)
Date: 2004-03-27T04:39:26+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby/DL and C++ libraries

In article <20040326130655.CC26.TIETEW-ML-RUBY-TALK@tietew.net>,
Tietew  <tietew-ml-ruby-talk@tietew.net> wrote:
>
>On Fri, 26 Mar 2004 12:04:28 +0900
>In article <f83335be.0403251902.40fd22c9@posting.google.com>
>[Ruby/DL and C++ libraries]
>google@redheendran.com (Bheeshmar Redheendran) wrote:
>
>> extern "C" void place( const std::string &text)
>> {
>>         std::cout << text << std::endl ;
>> }
> :
>> It works with C functions (change the "const std::string &" to a
>> "const char *" and it's all good).
>> 
>> I have a feeling this can work with the write typealias and encoding
>> functions, but I'm fairly new to Ruby and would appreciate any
>> pointers.
>
>A const std::string & is not a const char *.
>C (dl.so) doesn't know how to construct/destruct std::string.
>
>Use C-compatible types only, or write an extension library using
>Ruby APIs. SWIG is one of nice solution I think.

Swig is great when you've got the source code for the library available.
If you've got a shared library and an API reference for it (but no source 
code) then Ruby/DL seems like the way to go.

Are you saying that Ruby/DL won't work with a shared library that was 
developed in C++?

Phil