[MacRuby-devel] need review for macrubyc man-page
Ernest N. Prabhakar, Ph.D.
prabhaka at apple.com
Thu Dec 17 22:30:51 PST 2009
On Dec 17, 2009, at 5:48 PM, Matt Aimonetti wrote:
> For those who don't have the latest repo pulled, here is the output of Laurent's command:
Thanks, Matt!
Laurent, your English is very good (or at least on part with other man page writers :-).
I did have a couple minor suggestions:
* technically, isn't rubyc a front-end to the entire compile-and-link process?
It might be nice to make that clearer. Not sure how. Perhaps change the second sentence to:
> It statically compiles Ruby source code into native machine code (object files), and can then link it (dynamically or statically) into executables or dynamic libraries
A bit wordy, but you get the idea.
* alphabetize the options, since otherwise the ordering appears random, which makes it harder to scan
* The first paragraph under "EXAMPLES" doesn't seem to fit
The rbo magic really seems to be about best practice, not an example of how to use the command itself.
I'd suggest you start this section with the brain-dead simple a.out example. Perhaps put the current first paragraph under a "USAGE" section, where you can expand upon ways this would be used in practice. If you do, you should flesh out the example to explain how to compile and package the final binary.
* "its machine code will be ran " -> will be _run_
* "will ran upon #require calls" -> will _be run_
Great stuff!
-- Ernie P.
>
> RUBYC(1) BSD General Commands Manual RUBYC(1)
>
> NAME
> rubyc -- MacRuby Ahead-of-Time Compiler
>
> SYNOPSIS
> rubyc [options...] files...
>
> DESCRIPTION
> rubyc is a command-line interface to the MacRuby Ahead-of-Time (AOT) com-
> piler. It allows static compilation of Ruby source code into machine code
> objects, dynamic libraries or executables.
>
> The Ahead-of-Time compilation process has two major advantages; the Ruby
> code does not need to be parsed and compiled at runtime, which improves
> the startup time of the program, and the original Ruby source code is no
> longer available as is since it has been compiled down to machine code.
>
> OPTIONS
> The rubyc tool accepts the following command-line options:
>
> -o file
> Place the output into file. If this option is not given, rubyc will
> try to determine a default output file name based on the object file
> type that is being generated. For executables, the default is a.out.
> For objects, the default is the original source file name with the
> object type extension. For dynamic libraries, this option is manda-
> tory.
>
> -c Compile and assemble, but do not link. This option produces a Mach-O
> object file (.o) for every Ruby source file passed to rubyc, using a
> default file name which consists of the source file name with the .o
> file extension. Such a file can later be passed to rubyc to create a
> dynamic library or executable.
>
> -C Compile, assemble and link a loadable object file. This option pro-
> duces a Mach-O MacRuby loadable object bundle (.rbo) for every Ruby
> source file passed to using a default file name which consists of
> the source file name with the .rbo file extension. A MacRuby load-
> able object is a Mach-O bundle compiled with a global constructor
> that will evaluate the Ruby machine code once it's loaded by the
> dynamic linker, at runtime, generally upon a Ruby #require state-
> ment.
>
> --static
> Create a standalone, static executable. By default, executables cre-
> ated by rubyc are dynamically linking against the MacRuby runtime.
> This option will generate executables that are statically linking
> against the MacRuby runtime, significantly increasing the binary
> size but allowing its distribution on environments where MacRuby is
> not installed. This option can only be used when creating executa-
> bles.
>
> --dylib
> Create a dynamic library instead of an executable. This option com-
> piles every Ruby source file passed to rubyc and produces a Mach-O
> dynamic library (.dylib). This library is compiled with a global
> constructor that will register every Ruby machine code file into the
> MacRuby runtime once it's loaded by the dynamic linker, at runtime.
> This library is intended to be linked against an executable that
> uses the MacRuby runtime, for example executables generated by
> rubyc. The -o option must be provided when building dynamic
> libraries.
>
> -a arch, --arch arch
> Compile for specified CPU architecture. By default, rubyc will com-
> pile for the current CPU architecture. This option will compile for
> a different architecture. When this option is provided more than
> once, rubyc will create a universal binary. At the time of this
> writing, only the i386 and x86_64 architectures are supported.
>
> -v, --version
> Display the version.
>
> -V, --verbose
> Print every command line executed by rubyc. This option is gener-
> ally used for internal debugging.
>
> -h, --help
> Display a short description of the command line options.
>
> EXAMPLES
> The easiest way to compile an existing project is probably to generate
> loadable object bundles for every Ruby source file, using the -C option.
> These bundles are using the .rbo file extension and can simply be
> installed in the same directory as the original .rb source files. The
> MacRuby runtime will always pick .rbo files in priority upon #require
> calls. The source files can later be removed.
> $ find src/lib -name *.rb -exec rubyc -C {} ;
>
> rubyc without any option will create a binary executable, like the C com-
> piler.
> $ echo "p 42" > test.rb
> $ rubyc test.rb
> $ ./a.out
>
> When building an executable, the very first file passed to rubyc will be
> considered as the main file and its machine code will be ran once the
> executable starts. Other machine code files will be linked into the exe-
> cutable but only ran upon #require calls.
> $ echo "def t1; 21; end" > t1.rb
> $ echo "def t2; 21; end" > t2.rb
> $ echo "require 't1'; require 't2'; p t1+t2" > test.rb
> $ rubyc test.rb t1.rb t2.rb -o test
> $ ./test
>
> rubyc is also able to generate a dynamic library (.dylib) out of Ruby
> source files, using the --dylib option. Such a library can later be
> linked against an executable that uses the MacRuby runtime. Like executa-
> bles, the Ruby machine code files will ran upon #require calls. Libraries
> can also be passed to rubyc when forming an executable, allowing the com-
> pilation of multiple executables sharing common code.
> $ rubyc t1.rb t2.rb -o code.dylib --dylib
> $ rubyc test.rb code.dylib -o test
> $ ./test
>
> SEE ALSO
> ruby(1) irb(1) ruby_deploy(1)
>
> BSD December 16, 2009 BSD
>
>
>
> On Thu, Dec 17, 2009 at 5:39 PM, Laurent Sansonetti <lsansonetti at apple.com> wrote:
> Hi guys,
>
> I just committed an early draft of the macrubyc man-page. Would be nice to have some feedback about it. I'm not good at writing English neither at documenting stuff :) Please let me know if you find English mistakes or if there is something you do not understand, or if something is missing.
>
> http://svn.macosforge.org/repository/ruby/MacRuby/trunk/rubyc.1
>
> To view it:
>
> $ groff -Tascii -man rubyc.1 | more
>
> Thanks,
> Laurent
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