[MacRuby-devel] A path to linking rbo files into one executable in Xcode

[Laurent Sansonetti]

Hi Dylan,

Sorry for the late response.

On Nov 25, 2009, at 10:21 AM, Dylan Bruzenak wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> First, great work with the 0.5b2 release. I'm starting to use this  
> for more serious development and it does most of the things I need  
> very well. After a brief struggle last night I managed to get the  
> code for one of my projects compiling using the new macruby_deploy  
> method and it works like a charm.
>
> However, I would like to include the .rbo files in the same  
> executable inside the .app bundle as my objc files, rather than as  
> separate files in the resources directory.
>
> To that end I defined a build rule that picks up .rb files and uses  
> macrubyc to compile them. I moved the .rb files into the 'compile  
> sources' build step, which causes the output .o files to be included  
> in the excutable.
>
> I then ran into an obvious snag: the ruby environment isn't  
> intialized and the classes are not being pulled in. After some  
> investigation of the rubyc file I can see that you're creating a  
> custom .mm file that calls a number of set up methods for the  
> runtime and an MREP_UUID function for each class. A few questions:
>
> 1.) Is there a way that I can find these MREP function names and  
> call them dynamically ? I was considering modifying the generator to  
> output a .m file with a class that just has an init method that  
> calls these, but it isn't compatible with the build rule approach  
> above.

You can use the nm(1) tool against every .o file to locate the MREP_  
symbol name.

> 2.) Is there an easier way to set up this environment than the code  
> below ?
>
> ruby_sysinit(&argc, &argv);
>     if (argc > 0) {
> 		argc--;
>         argv++;
>     }
> 	
>     ruby_init();
>     ruby_set_argv(argc, argv);
>     rb_vm_init_compiler();
>     try {
>         void *self = rb_vm_top_self();
>         //MREP FUNCTION CALLS GO HERE :)
> 	}
>     catch (...) {
> 		rb_vm_print_current_exception();
> 		rb_exit(1);
>     }
>     rb_exit(0);
>
> 3.) Am I nuts ? If there's a much easier way to do this, please let  
> me know :)

You're not nuts :) Having the ability to compile all the source code  
of an application into the same executable is something we definitely  
want to feature. Your approach should work but I would like to offer a  
solution that doesn't require any change in MacRuby or the application  
code. I also want a solution that works on non-Xcode projects (command- 
line tools).

Basically, my plan is to add a global table in MacRuby core that would  
be filled by macrubyc once you produce an executable based on .o Ruby  
files. The table would be a simple "Ruby file path" to "MREP_ function  
name" mapping. Then, at runtime, #require would look into that table  
and appropriately run the initializers.

I haven't had the time to implement this idea yet. I may do it for the  
final 0.5. Hopefully this can be done in macruby_deploy. Any help  
would be greatly appreciated :)

Laurent