Using compiled MacRuby objects from an Objective-C application
I'm working on an application that is primarily Objective-C but uses MacRuby as a plugin language (the application also has a C# / IronRuby counterpart on Windows, allowing for the plugins to be cross-platform). I've been loading the ruby files at runtime using the Objective-C MacRuby API's sharedRuntime and bundling MacRuby into the application bundle. However, the ruby plugins have gotten complex enough that parsing them is taking about 3 seconds at application startup on a modern MacBook Pro. I would like reduce the load time by precompiling the ruby files and linking the resulting object files to the application. So far I've done exactly that, but I can't figure out how to access the ruby classes at runtime from the Objective-C application. I've tried two techniques: // causes SIGABRT id rubyClass = [[MacRuby sharedRuntime] evaluateString:@"MyRubyClass"]; - and - // returns NULL Class rubyClass = NSClassFromString(@"MyRubyClass"); I would love to see an example or description of how this can be done--- how to link pre-compiled ruby files (dylib) to an Objective-C application and then access the classes defined in those ruby files from the Objective-C environment.. I've dug through the last 6 months of the archives, and I've found only one other reference to this question, but it was left mostly unanswered: http://lists.macosforge.org/pipermail/macruby-devel/2010-October/006206.html -Justin
Hi Justin, Linking MacRuby object files into a pure Objective-C program is still tricky to do, and it has not been tested very well. I will look at writing some use case tests for macrubyc and see if we can get everything in good shape for the next release. I recommend to stick to .rbo compilation at this point. You just need to compile every .rb file of your app into an .rbo one, and leave the Objective-C code untouched. The startup time of .rbo files vs directly linking the object files should be negligible (unless you have tons of .rb files). You mention 3 seconds, that seems a lot. Maybe some work could also be done in macruby core to speed up loading your files. Could you tell me the startup time you get after compiling to .rbo? If it's still significant, we may need to investigate more. Laurent On Dec 20, 2010, at 5:18 PM, Justin Schumacher wrote:
I'm working on an application that is primarily Objective-C but uses MacRuby as a plugin language (the application also has a C# / IronRuby counterpart on Windows, allowing for the plugins to be cross-platform). I've been loading the ruby files at runtime using the Objective-C MacRuby API's sharedRuntime and bundling MacRuby into the application bundle. However, the ruby plugins have gotten complex enough that parsing them is taking about 3 seconds at application startup on a modern MacBook Pro. I would like reduce the load time by precompiling the ruby files and linking the resulting object files to the application. So far I've done exactly that, but I can't figure out how to access the ruby classes at runtime from the Objective-C application.
I've tried two techniques:
// causes SIGABRT id rubyClass = [[MacRuby sharedRuntime] evaluateString:@"MyRubyClass"];
- and -
// returns NULL Class rubyClass = NSClassFromString(@"MyRubyClass");
I would love to see an example or description of how this can be done--- how to link pre-compiled ruby files (dylib) to an Objective-C application and then access the classes defined in those ruby files from the Objective-C environment..
I've dug through the last 6 months of the archives, and I've found only one other reference to this question, but it was left mostly unanswered:
http://lists.macosforge.org/pipermail/macruby-devel/2010-October/006206.html
-Justin _______________________________________________ MacRuby-devel mailing list MacRuby-devel@lists.macosforge.org http://lists.macosforge.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/macruby-devel
Laurent, I made the switch to rbo files. The load time was 3.6 seconds with .rb files and 0.9 seconds with .rbo files. That's a good improvement and is acceptable for my project for the time being. I did notice that the Objective-C API method 'evaluateFileAtPath' cannot accept rbo files. To load the rbo files from Objective-C, I'm using the following pattern: [[MacRuby sharedRuntime] evaluateString:[NSString stringWithFormat:@"require '%@'", filename]]; Probably no big performance hit there, but I'm wondering if it would make sense for evaluateFileAtPath to be able to accept rbo files as well as rb files. Thanks for the tip. Looking forward to the ability to link macrubyc files in with objective-c files... -Justin On Tue, Dec 21, 2010 at 1:02 PM, Laurent Sansonetti <lsansonetti@apple.com>wrote:
Hi Justin,
Linking MacRuby object files into a pure Objective-C program is still tricky to do, and it has not been tested very well. I will look at writing some use case tests for macrubyc and see if we can get everything in good shape for the next release.
I recommend to stick to .rbo compilation at this point. You just need to compile every .rb file of your app into an .rbo one, and leave the Objective-C code untouched. The startup time of .rbo files vs directly linking the object files should be negligible (unless you have tons of .rb files).
You mention 3 seconds, that seems a lot. Maybe some work could also be done in macruby core to speed up loading your files. Could you tell me the startup time you get after compiling to .rbo? If it's still significant, we may need to investigate more.
Laurent
On Dec 20, 2010, at 5:18 PM, Justin Schumacher wrote:
I'm working on an application that is primarily Objective-C but uses MacRuby as a plugin language (the application also has a C# / IronRuby counterpart on Windows, allowing for the plugins to be cross-platform). I've been loading the ruby files at runtime using the Objective-C MacRuby API's sharedRuntime and bundling MacRuby into the application bundle. However, the ruby plugins have gotten complex enough that parsing them is taking about 3 seconds at application startup on a modern MacBook Pro. I would like reduce the load time by precompiling the ruby files and linking the resulting object files to the application. So far I've done exactly that, but I can't figure out how to access the ruby classes at runtime from the Objective-C application.
I've tried two techniques:
// causes SIGABRT id rubyClass = [[MacRuby sharedRuntime] evaluateString:@"MyRubyClass"];
- and -
// returns NULL Class rubyClass = NSClassFromString(@"MyRubyClass");
I would love to see an example or description of how this can be done--- how to link pre-compiled ruby files (dylib) to an Objective-C application and then access the classes defined in those ruby files from the Objective-C environment..
I've dug through the last 6 months of the archives, and I've found only one other reference to this question, but it was left mostly unanswered:
http://lists.macosforge.org/pipermail/macruby-devel/2010-October/006206.html
-Justin _______________________________________________ MacRuby-devel mailing list MacRuby-devel@lists.macosforge.org http://lists.macosforge.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/macruby-devel
_______________________________________________ MacRuby-devel mailing list MacRuby-devel@lists.macosforge.org http://lists.macosforge.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/macruby-devel
Hello Justin, On Thu, Dec 23, 2010 at 5:27 PM, Justin Schumacher < justin@sweetspotdiabetes.com> wrote:
Laurent,
I made the switch to rbo files. The load time was 3.6 seconds with .rb files and 0.9 seconds with .rbo files. That's a good improvement and is acceptable for my project for the time being. I did notice that the Objective-C API method 'evaluateFileAtPath' cannot accept rbo files. To load the rbo files from Objective-C, I'm using the following pattern:
[[MacRuby sharedRuntime] evaluateString:[NSString stringWithFormat:@"require '%@'", filename]];
Probably no big performance hit there, but I'm wondering if it would make sense for evaluateFileAtPath to be able to accept rbo files as well as rb files.
evaluateFileAtPath and evaluateString signals are just as they suggest, evaluation. Meaning, that it uses the Ruby style eval function to execute the file, so to say, and bring it into the interpreter / runtime to use in the program. I haven't worked with the sharedRuntime yet, but you may want to look at the possibility of loadFileAtPath, or some similar signal to actually load up rbo files, as they are binary compiled llvm object code. Just a thought, Mario
Thanks for the tip. Looking forward to the ability to link macrubyc files in with objective-c files...
-Justin
On Tue, Dec 21, 2010 at 1:02 PM, Laurent Sansonetti <lsansonetti@apple.com
wrote:
Hi Justin,
Linking MacRuby object files into a pure Objective-C program is still tricky to do, and it has not been tested very well. I will look at writing some use case tests for macrubyc and see if we can get everything in good shape for the next release.
I recommend to stick to .rbo compilation at this point. You just need to compile every .rb file of your app into an .rbo one, and leave the Objective-C code untouched. The startup time of .rbo files vs directly linking the object files should be negligible (unless you have tons of .rb files).
You mention 3 seconds, that seems a lot. Maybe some work could also be done in macruby core to speed up loading your files. Could you tell me the startup time you get after compiling to .rbo? If it's still significant, we may need to investigate more.
Laurent
On Dec 20, 2010, at 5:18 PM, Justin Schumacher wrote:
I'm working on an application that is primarily Objective-C but uses MacRuby as a plugin language (the application also has a C# / IronRuby counterpart on Windows, allowing for the plugins to be cross-platform). I've been loading the ruby files at runtime using the Objective-C MacRuby API's sharedRuntime and bundling MacRuby into the application bundle. However, the ruby plugins have gotten complex enough that parsing them is taking about 3 seconds at application startup on a modern MacBook Pro. I would like reduce the load time by precompiling the ruby files and linking the resulting object files to the application. So far I've done exactly that, but I can't figure out how to access the ruby classes at runtime from the Objective-C application.
I've tried two techniques:
// causes SIGABRT id rubyClass = [[MacRuby sharedRuntime] evaluateString:@"MyRubyClass"];
- and -
// returns NULL Class rubyClass = NSClassFromString(@"MyRubyClass");
I would love to see an example or description of how this can be done--- how to link pre-compiled ruby files (dylib) to an Objective-C application and then access the classes defined in those ruby files from the Objective-C environment..
I've dug through the last 6 months of the archives, and I've found only one other reference to this question, but it was left mostly unanswered:
http://lists.macosforge.org/pipermail/macruby-devel/2010-October/006206.html
-Justin _______________________________________________ MacRuby-devel mailing list MacRuby-devel@lists.macosforge.org http://lists.macosforge.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/macruby-devel
_______________________________________________ MacRuby-devel mailing list MacRuby-devel@lists.macosforge.org http://lists.macosforge.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/macruby-devel
_______________________________________________ MacRuby-devel mailing list MacRuby-devel@lists.macosforge.org http://lists.macosforge.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/macruby-devel
-- Mario Steele Lieutenant Commander 3 XO - Geo 99 XO - STO IFT Fleet http://www.trekfederation.com http://geo99.ruby-im.net
Hi Justin, On Dec 23, 2010, at 2:27 PM, Justin Schumacher wrote:
Laurent,
I made the switch to rbo files. The load time was 3.6 seconds with .rb files and 0.9 seconds with .rbo files. That's a good improvement and is acceptable for my project for the time being.
Does the 0.9 seconds include the startup time of the whole runtime, such as the initial call to [MacRuby sharedRuntime]? If yes, it sounds acceptable for the time being. I have a plan to boost the startup time of the runtime within a Cocoa environment, by making BridgeSupport files loading faster, and I hope to get this in in 0.9.
I did notice that the Objective-C API method 'evaluateFileAtPath' cannot accept rbo files. To load the rbo files from Objective-C, I'm using the following pattern:
[[MacRuby sharedRuntime] evaluateString:[NSString stringWithFormat:@"require '%@'", filename]];
Probably no big performance hit there, but I'm wondering if it would make sense for evaluateFileAtPath to be able to accept rbo files as well as rb files.
I think it would make sense, indeed. Could you file a ticket on our tracker? Thanks! Laurent
Laurent, I've added a ticket for the RBO loading API method. The 0.9 seconds does not include the sharedRuntime initialization. I just clocked that initialization at 0.6 seconds. It looks like there's some WebKit stuff going on during initialization, as I always see these warnings (I use MacRuby on a secondary thread): 2010-12-27 10:58:02.770 ------------[31466:5207] WebKit Threading Violation - initial use of WebKit from a secondary thread. 2010-12-27 10:58:02.835 ------------[31466:5207] +[NSATSGlyphGenerator initialize] invocation. The class is deprecated. -Justin On Sun, Dec 26, 2010 at 5:36 PM, Laurent Sansonetti <lsansonetti@apple.com>wrote:
Hi Justin,
On Dec 23, 2010, at 2:27 PM, Justin Schumacher wrote:
Laurent,
I made the switch to rbo files. The load time was 3.6 seconds with .rb files and 0.9 seconds with .rbo files. That's a good improvement and is acceptable for my project for the time being.
Does the 0.9 seconds include the startup time of the whole runtime, such as the initial call to [MacRuby sharedRuntime]? If yes, it sounds acceptable for the time being.
I have a plan to boost the startup time of the runtime within a Cocoa environment, by making BridgeSupport files loading faster, and I hope to get this in in 0.9.
I did notice that the Objective-C API method 'evaluateFileAtPath' cannot accept rbo files. To load the rbo files from Objective-C, I'm using the following pattern:
[[MacRuby sharedRuntime] evaluateString:[NSString stringWithFormat:@"require '%@'", filename]];
Probably no big performance hit there, but I'm wondering if it would make sense for evaluateFileAtPath to be able to accept rbo files as well as rb files.
I think it would make sense, indeed. Could you file a ticket on our tracker?
Thanks! Laurent
_______________________________________________ MacRuby-devel mailing list MacRuby-devel@lists.macosforge.org http://lists.macosforge.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/macruby-devel
participants (3)
-
Justin Schumacher
-
Laurent Sansonetti
-
Mario Steele