December 2011 - MacRuby-devel - lists.macosforge.org

MacRuby scripting bridge speed
by Stephen Horne 23 Dec '11

23 Dec '11

I'm new to all this, so apologies if I'm doing something daft. I'm trying to create a MacRuby GUI application to parse a load of information from InDesign documents. I've previously made this application using applescriptObjC, but I was constantly bouncing off the walls of applescript and getting seemingly random bad_exec errors if I ran it too many times without a reboot, so I've decided to try with MacRuby. I'm only at the stage of probing MacRuby to see how to do it, and I've immediately hit a problem; it seems to take a very long time to set up the link to InDesign. I found some code in correspondence between Matt Aimonetti and Spencer Rose that I am using to test: #!/usr/local/bin/macruby framework 'Foundation' framework 'ScriptingBridge' # I followed Matt's instructions for making the bridge support file, but I wasn't sure where it needs to go, so I did this for a quick fix. load_bridge_support_file '/Users/fatboy/inDesign.bridgesupport' appurl = NSURL.fileURLWithPath("/Applications/Adobe Indesign CS5/Adobe InDesign CS5.app") @id = SBApplication.applicationWithURL(appurl) doc = @id.activeDocument puts doc.name pgph = doc.allParagraphStyles pgph.each do |style| puts "#{style.name}" puts style.properties["appliedFont"].name end This code works, but it takes 15+ seconds to set up the link to InDesign (similar stuff with safari takes about 1 second, and in applescript or rb-appscript it takes about a tenth of a second for either InDesign or safari). I also tried SBApplication.applicationWithBundleIdentifier("com.adobe.indesign"), and this was just the same. Is there something I am missing here? Thanks in advance for any help you can offer. Fb

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MacRuby challenge
by Matt Aimonetti 22 Dec '11

22 Dec '11

Hey guys, In case you missed the tweet http://twitter.com/macruby/status/142271489058672640 here is a quick MacRuby challenge: - modify this face detection script http://gist.github.com/1417463 to make it "mustachify" passed images. The exercise is interesting since it makes you work outside of Xcode and with some low level APIs to create something hopefully cool. Bonus points for creative changes of the challenge (use glasses instead of a mustache or both or whatever you come up with). - Matt

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Re: [MacRuby-devel] MacRuby-devel Digest, Vol 45, Issue 26
by Jean-Denis MUYS 22 Dec '11

22 Dec '11

Thanks for your answer. I followed your advice, and indeed, it works quite nicely. However, in the meantime, I filed a ticket reporting the bug to the MacRuby project. And the bug is already fixed (thanks Watson1978). A commit has been added today with the fix. The latest nightly doesn't yet include the fix, but tomorrow's should. So I built MacRuby from source, and I can confirm that the short sample session that I quoted yesterday now works fine. I can't preclude other bugs to show up downstream, but I have no reason to suspect so. So I now have two working options, between MCPKit and Sequel. MacRuby at its best. For reference, the short version of the recipe for MCPKit is: - Download the source code for Sequel Pro and open the included Xcode project. Sequel Pro uses Interface Builder plugins which are not support in Xcode 4. However, we won't build Sequel Pro, and it's OK here to use Xcode 4. I used Xcode 4.2 - Out of the 8 or so targets included in the Sequel Pro Xcode project, choose the framework target named MCPKit - As of today, this target specifies an old SDK. In the target settings, switch the SDK to the latest SDK (10.7 under Lion for me). - As of today, this target is set up as incompatible with GC. This doesn't work with MacRuby. Switch that target setting to "Supported". This setting is "Objective-C Garbage Collection" in the "Apple LLVM Compiler 3.0 - Language" section. - The "Installation Directory" setting (in the "deployment" section) is set for installing the framework as a private framework in the application bundle. This works for me. If you want to install the framework system-wide, you'll have to change this. - Build the target and copy the output package (MCPKit.framework) to your MacRuby source code directory. - You can close the Sequel Pro Xcode project. Switch to your MacRuby Xcode project. - Go to your app target "Build Phases" tab, and open the "Link Binary With Libraries" section. Click the + button to add the framework. In the library selection sheet, click "Add Other…" and select the MCPKit.framework package. - Click the big + button at the bottom right of the Build Phases pane to add a new Copy Files phase. Select "Frameworks" in the new Copy Phase destination pop up menu. Drag the MCPKit.framework from your project source list to the Copy Phase file list (or alternatively use the + button). - That's it. This recipe actually works for any external private framework. Jean-Denis On 16 nov. 2011, at 19:28, <macruby-devel-request(a)lists.macosforge.org<mailto:macruby-devel-request@lists.macosforge.org>> wrote: Message: 3 Date: Wed, 16 Nov 2011 17:29:18 +0000 From: Steve Clarke <steve(a)sclarkes.me.uk<mailto:steve@sclarkes.me.uk>> To: "MacRuby development discussions." <macruby-devel(a)lists.macosforge.org<mailto:macruby-devel@lists.macosforge.org>> Subject: Re: [MacRuby-devel] symbol not found: _rb_str_freeze Message-ID: <60D7AE97-7D34-481A-BD2E-E17B8B7CAB7A(a)sclarkes.me.uk<mailto:60D7AE97-7D34-481A-BD2E-E17B8B7CAB7A@sclarkes.me.uk>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252 Hi Jean-Denis, I can't answer your question directly but I may be able to help a bit. I also want to use mysql with `MacRuby. I tried mysql gem version 2.8.1 and hit problems I couldn't work around. I also tried ruby-mysql 2.9.4. I did get that to work after some mods, but it was very slow to load and didn't seem totally reliable. I then decided to use an Objective-C framework that accesses SQL. Sequel Pro contains such a framework called MCPKit and it's open source. This means no gems so it loads v quickly. However, the version of MCPKit that I downloaded had manual memory management so wouldn't link with a MacRuby app. I don't know much about Objective-C but I thought I would just try recompiling MCPKit with ARC and garbage collection. To my surprise and delight it worked. I'm afraid I don't know how robust this approach is likely to be. Maybe I've just been lucky. It would be interesting to hear from someone who understands memory management better than me. Steve On 16 Nov 2011, at 15:33, Jean-Denis MUYS wrote: Hi, I have a big showstopper with my app: sequel with the mysql gem fails with the following error message: dyld: Symbol not found: _rb_str_freeze Referenced from: /Library/Frameworks/MacRuby.frameword/[?]/mysql_api.bundle This is mentioned on the net on the sequel project back in february. The diagnostic of the sequel developer was that this is a bug in MacRuby. I am using MacRuby nightly latest as of November 17, 2011, which reports its version as 0.12 I have mysql gem version 2.8.1 I have sequel gem version 3.29.0 Steps to reproduce in macirb: require 'ruby gems' require 'sequel' DB = Sequel.connect(:adapter => 'mysql', :user => 'root', :host => 'localhost', :database => 'test', :password => 'your password') DB.tables Is there any workaround/ easy fix? I would appreciate any suggestion, including of alternate gems to use. Jean-Denis

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Speed
by François Boone 22 Dec '11

22 Dec '11

Hi, I have written a function with 461 queries in a MySQL database. With macirb, it takes more or less 1s for all queries. I put my file in a Xcode project and when I click on a button, the action is to run this function. However, it takes more or less 1s for EACH query! I use normal schedule, not deployment as explained in the definitive guide, (I don't want give the exact title to not make advertisement in a post lol ) What's wrong? François

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Re: [MacRuby-devel] MacRuby-devel Digest, Vol 46, Issue 25
by Jean-Denis MUYS 21 Dec '11

21 Dec '11

On 21 déc. 2011, at 11:13, Jeff Hemmelgarn wrote: Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2011 23:57:53 -0500 From: Jeff Hemmelgarn <jhemmelg(a)gmail.com<mailto:jhemmelg@gmail.com>> To: "MacRuby development discussions." <macruby-devel(a)lists.macosforge.org<mailto:macruby-devel@lists.macosforge.org>> Subject: Re: [MacRuby-devel] A Future for MacRuby Message-ID: <8C895ABA-A5E5-4FF7-A2EB-0E70BBB22493(a)gmail.com<mailto:8C895ABA-A5E5-4FF7-A2EB-0E70BBB22493@gmail.com>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii I guess my main angst is with the the direction and philosophy of the project. One vision of MacRuby has it being a fully compatible ruby implementation, that happens to be built on the Objective-C runtime and have good integration to all of the libraries provided by Apple, but wrap the guts so that everything is a ruby object. This is basically how I see the JRuby project. Access to java libraries and code, but regular ruby runs correctly. Another vision of MacRuby is instead an Apple-centric tool that exposes it's Objective-C underpinnings in non-compatile ways. I am talking about using named parameters and having classes like NSMutableArray in the class hierarchy, at least. There may be other things that I am not aware of. […] Jeff Hemmelgarn For me, about the only value proposition for MacRuby is to enable the development of Mac applications using the Ruby language. That's it. Behind that deceptive mission statement, there hide a number of key features: On the "Mac applications" side: - integration with Cocoa frameworks, with as little transmogrification as possible: check. Very good. - bridging with Objective-C, both to enable multi-language development, and the use of 3rd party libraries: check. Rather good (but for the understandable limitation to require GC). - integration with Mac development tools: from good to poor. Good for IB, Ok for Xcode templates, poor for debugging On the "Ruby language" side: - enabling the use of Ruby gems: reasonably OK, though some are expected to be incompatible. The main issue in that case is that there is no clear path to follow when facing an issue with a gem. Is this a bug with the gem? Is this a bug with MacRuby? How to find out? How to fix or work around it? - enabling the dynamic ("interpreted") REPL style of software development in a MacApp: not checked. Not done at all, though some recent experiments from me and others (Dynamic MacRuby Reload) showed that a lot is possible. Overall, my attempt to use MacRuby for my current MacApp application is: very disappointing. Despite Dynamic MacRuby Reload being very useful. There are two main reasons for that: - First and foremost, the lack of a debugger is killing me and my productivity. I ended up defining an Objective-C routine, PrintAndBreak, that takes an object as a parameter, prints it address, and breaks into GDB. From there I can at least inspect that object before continuing. But I still can't step, and the stack trace seen from Objective-C is mostly useless. So that's not enough. The end result is that for more and more methods, especially the most algorithmic ones, I switched to Objective-C - Second, my application needs to talk to a mySQL server. That was originally a big incentive to use MacRuby: the promise of using some Ruby mySQL gem was so very enticing. I found the impressive 'sequel' gem. However, it turns out it crashed MacRuby. I found on the net that that incompatibility was known for month. I managed to reduce the incompatibility to one MacRuby routine, and file a ticket to MacRuby. The next day, the incompatibility was fixed. Happy ending? Not so fast. It then turned out that the sequel-MacRuby combination fails for mySQL tables that have column names with diacritical characters (fail. not crash. Empty results are returned). I didn't have time to investigate that second issue. I don't even know if it's MacRuby related. I simply switched over to MCPKit, an Objective-C mySQL library. As a result of these two issues, my MacRuby app is now 80% Objective-C. For me, that's a MacRuby failure. The perspective is still there, but not the reward. At the very least, the reward will not be there until we have some debugging facilities. And for that, I can't see how we can achieve this without Apple (or perhaps somehow including macrubyd outside in). Jean-Denis

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Re: [MacRuby-devel] MacRuby-devel Digest, Vol 46, Issue 24
by Jean-Denis MUYS 21 Dec '11

21 Dec '11

On 21 déc. 2011, at 00:43, David Frantz wrote: Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2011 18:43:40 -0500 From: David Frantz <websterindustro(a)mac.com<mailto:websterindustro@mac.com>> To: "MacRuby development discussions." <macruby-devel(a)lists.macosforge.org<mailto:macruby-devel@lists.macosforge.org>> Subject: Re: [MacRuby-devel] A Future for MacRuby Message-ID: <E5E9A3A9-39E7-474E-B6F9-0A93B07A4CDF(a)mac.com<mailto:E5E9A3A9-39E7-474E-B6F9-0A93B07A4CDF@mac.com>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" The XCode integration is actually something that I find bothersome, especially the reliance upon nibs or whatever they are called. Neither Xcode, nor Cocoa rely on NIB files. At all. Everything you can do with a nib file, you can do without. A nib file is nothing but a collection of objects that have been serialized to a disk file, and that can be resurrected at run time. period. Your perception is wrong, and I am afraid you may pass judgement based on that misunderstanding. As an IDE goes XCode has never really been professional level, though I know that statement frustrates many it is very much true. I have precisely the opposite opinion, Xcode's bug non withstanding. As to nibs well the whole thing is just very obtuse and frustrating to me. Clearly, you misunderstand them. NIB files, as collections of pre-built and serialized objects are very useful. I use them all the time. Mind you my background is not the same as many here, being focused on industrial automation, but if find the use of nibs and Interface builder to be very taxing and not very object Oriented. NIB file is the most object-oriented approach to User-Interface construction that can be. What can be more object-oriented than serializing objects? It runs circle around code generation for example (or worse, code attachment, Visual Basic style). MacRuby would likely generate a lot more interest if they moved away from the interface builder approach to GUI development. MacRuby is neither here nor there. As a language. it's completely neutral regarding how you design your app's user interface. MacRuby neither helps with, nor impede, either of: - using NIB files - using plain Cocoa code - using layers over Cocoa code, whatever they may be (HotCocoa being a MacRuby-specific instance) I for one will keep using NIB files for GUI construction, and for as many other use as possible. It's the most flexible approach to date, the easiest to localize and to evolve. In contrast, when I learned HotCocoa, I found that it brought very little benefit, at a significant learning cost. I know this will result in many arrows coming my way, but really folks lets be objective here IB is a very strange departure from most GUI development systems. IB? Are you sure? What is so special about IB? IB is an application that let's you draw view layouts (and a bit more). Sure it has limitations that I'd like to see removed, especially in Xcode 4 (I wish I could zoom in and out for example). But I suspect you were still referring to NIB files, not to IB. So what are *most* GUI development systems that you are referring to? I have looked at many, and I found all those that I had to work with far inferior to this simple and sound idea of serializing objects. Jean-Denis

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Source List: NSOutlineView in a NSScrollView
by François Boone 15 Dec '11

15 Dec '11

Hi, With help of Matt and Watson, I have made a tree using Outline View object and it works fine. Now I would like to go one step further. I would like to use the Source List object available in Object Library. This Source List looks like Outline View with TableColumn Object. In this Table Object there is two Table Cell objects, the first one for the header and the second one, divided in two objects, for an image and a text. My question is: how to build the data to fill the Source List object: I try something like this: @data = [ [ {:group => 'Title'}], [:cell => {:image => image1, :name => 'Test'} ] ] where image1 is a NSImage object. But this doesn't work. I don't now why it doesn't work: 1) a bad structure for @data 2) a bad binding in xib file 3) a bad definition of outlineView (I kept the same definition than the previous Outline View project) Thanks for reply François

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LLVM 3.0 and MacRuby
by Maik Kempe 12 Dec '11

12 Dec '11

Hi all, use any of you LLVM 3.0 and MacRuby or can compile MacRuby with LLVM 3.0 ? Or is currently only LLVM 2.9 supported? Just getting 'Invalid ALLOCA record' if i try to compile MacRuby. MacRuby/MacRuby - [master✔]» rake /usr/bin/bison -o y.tab.c parse.y parse.y: conflicts: 1 shift/reduce /usr/bin/sed -f ./tool/ytab.sed -e "/^#/s!y.tab.c!parse.c!" y.tab.c > parse.c.new mv parse.c.new parse.c rm -f .objs/parse.o cp lex.c.blt lex.c /usr/bin/ruby -n tool/node_name.rb include/ruby/node.h > node_name.inc echo '' > .objs/kernel_data.c /Developer/usr/bin/llvm-gcc -arch x86_64 -fexceptions -fno-stack-protector -fwrapv -I. -I./include -I./icu-1060 --emit-llvm -c kernel.c -o .objs/kernel-x86_64.bc /usr/local/bin/opt -O3 .objs/kernel-x86_64.bc -o=.objs/kernel-x86_64.bc /usr/local/bin/opt: .objs/kernel-x86_64.bc: Invalid ALLOCA record rake aborted! Command failed with status (1): [/usr/local/bin/opt -O3 .objs/kernel-x86_64...] Thanks a lot. Maik

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Framework name restrictions?
by Michael Groble 11 Dec '11

11 Dec '11

I had a problem using one of my own frameworks in MacRuby. gen_bridge_metadata was giving me the following: Received exception: can't convert nil into String: /usr/bin/gen_bridge_metadata:573:in `+' /usr/bin/gen_bridge_metadata:573:in `encode_includes' /usr/bin/gen_bridge_metadata:2091:in `handle_framework' /usr/bin/gen_bridge_metadata:882:in `prepare' /usr/bin/gen_bridge_metadata:882:in `each' /usr/bin/gen_bridge_metadata:882:in `prepare' /usr/bin/gen_bridge_metadata:721:in `parse' /usr/bin/gen_bridge_metadata:2321 /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/optparse.rb:791:in `initialize' /usr/bin/gen_bridge_metadata:2252:in `new' /usr/bin/gen_bridge_metadata:2252 can't convert nil into String After some debugging, I found out it was because my framework was named "audio-utilities" and the code in handle_framework expects the framework name to match the regular expression (\w+) which doesn't support the dash character. Xcode doesn't complain about that name. Are frameworks supposed to conform to a particular naming convention or is gen_bridge_metadata being too restrictive? Thanks

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Problem with XCode and interface builder (again)
by Stian Håklev 10 Dec '11

10 Dec '11

Hi all, I am just getting started with MacRuby, and I am having some problems with having interface builder recognize the outlets from my classes. I followed some of the tutorials online, and it just doesn't seem to work. I found a bunch of other people with the same problem, but it all seemed to be with previous XCode versions. I use XCode 4.2 on Lion, and I used MacRuby 0.10 (installed long after XCode). I also tried installing the MacRuby nightly (Dec 10, 2011), but there was no change. When I run nibtool in terminal, it spits out exactly what I'd expect to see... I know everyone says this is supposed to be resolved in XCode 4.2, but I still have this problem - any ideas on how I could resolve it? I'd prefer not to have to re-install OSX of course! :) thanks a lot Stian -- http://reganmian.net/blog -- Random Stuff that Matters

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