Use Perl modules from Ruby?

mbruby · September 29, 2006, 1:59pm

Hi Ruby-Community

I was looking for a way to talk to a Perl module from Ruby directly to
use its classes, methods or functions. However, it seems there is no
up2date/maintained Ruby/Perl binding ? I have found the “Perl module for
Ruby” (http://www.yoshidam.net/perl_en.txt), but his website states it
is no longer maintained and also it seems not like an offical thing
available in Rubyforge.

I am aware of %x{ … } to run scripts and stuff, but what I really want
is to use some legacy Perl modules which are too big to convert
completely into Ruby.

Any ideas, suggestions and tips ? My search so far was pretty boring.
Seems like not many people would like to do this ?

Thank you and best regards!

PS: Sorry if I am just stupid and not aware of a obvious thing available
in Ruby. I am new to the language and might not have seen “THE WAY” to
go

mbruby · September 29, 2006, 2:50pm

+1 interested in the solution too

mbruby · September 29, 2006, 3:08pm

On 9/29/06, Dr Nic [email protected] wrote:

+1 interested in the solution too

Would something like this be possible with RubyInline?

You’d probably need to hack up a Perl handler for it.

Martin

mbruby · September 29, 2006, 4:02pm

Markus B. wrote:

is to use some legacy Perl modules which are too big to convert

Hmmm … is enough of Cardinal (Ruby interface to Parrot), Parrot and
the Perl interface to Parrot working that this could be done that way?
That was one of the goals of Parrot – a virtual machine that would
support at least Perl, Python and Ruby and maybe other dynamic
languages.

mbruby · September 29, 2006, 4:10pm

On 9/29/06, Markus B. [email protected] wrote:

I am aware of %x{ … } to run scripts and stuff, but what I really want
is to use some legacy Perl modules which are too big to convert
completely into Ruby.

I have a hard time imagining a Perl module too big to convert
completely into Ruby. What does the module do? Is it proprietary, or
is it on CPAN somewhere?

-A

mbruby · September 29, 2006, 4:28pm

On Sep 29, 2006, at 9:08 AM, Alex LeDonne wrote:

On 9/29/06, Markus B. [email protected] wrote:

I am aware of %x{ … } to run scripts and stuff, but what I
really want
is to use some legacy Perl modules which are too big to convert
completely into Ruby.

I have a hard time imagining a Perl module too big to convert
completely into Ruby. What does the module do? Is it proprietary, or
is it on CPAN somewhere?

If it’s an OO Perl module, odds are good the Ruby will be smaller.

James Edward G. II

mbruby · September 29, 2006, 4:16pm

On 9/29/06, Alex LeDonne [email protected] wrote:

On 9/29/06, Markus B. [email protected] wrote:

I am aware of %x{ … } to run scripts and stuff, but what I really want
is to use some legacy Perl modules which are too big to convert
completely into Ruby.

I have a hard time imagining a Perl module too big to convert
completely into Ruby. What does the module do? Is it proprietary, or
is it on CPAN somewhere?

Yes, what is it? Maybe someone would want to convert it.

mbruby · September 29, 2006, 5:18pm

On 9/29/06, Leslie V. [email protected] wrote:

Yes, what is it? Maybe someone would want to convert it.

It might be useful to have some sort of Ruby “porting party” website.
A central location where folks interested in a given library can all
get together and set up a date/time where they could get together
online and churn it out. Maybe have a “top 10 most-wanted libs” list,
sign-up sheet, wish-list, calendar, “Done” list…

—John

mbruby · September 29, 2006, 5:02pm

If it’s an OO Perl module, odds are good the Ruby will be smaller.

James Edward G. II

In my situation, we have a generated perl library and a perl wrapper for
a compiled library.

Yes I can generate a Ruby library
Yes I can probably write my own Ruby wrapper for the compiled library

I am hoping the elusive ruby -> perl hooks mean I don’t have to.

#2 scares me.

Nic

mbruby · September 29, 2006, 5:59pm

On 9/29/06, John G. [email protected] wrote:

It might be useful to have some sort of Ruby “porting party” website.
A central location where folks interested in a given library can all
get together and set up a date/time where they could get together
online and churn it out. Maybe have a “top 10 most-wanted libs” list,
sign-up sheet, wish-list, calendar, “Done” list…

top 1 most-wanted libs:

LWP

It would be a severe understatement to say LWP is the best
www library in any language ever made. Nothing I’ve ever seen
gets even close. And it’s pretty unlikely Ruby can get a
comparable library any time soon in any way other than
recoding the real thing.

Anther really cool perl lib is IO::Multiplex.

mbruby · September 30, 2006, 4:28am

snacktime wrote:

I have a hard time imagining a Perl module too big to convert
completely into Ruby. What does the module do? Is it proprietary, or
is it on CPAN somewhere?

Date::Manip

Is there something Date::Manip can do that the built-in date calculators
in Rails can’t do?

mbruby · September 29, 2006, 7:19pm

I have a hard time imagining a Perl module too big to convert
completely into Ruby. What does the module do? Is it proprietary, or
is it on CPAN somewhere?

Date::Manip

mbruby · September 30, 2006, 7:08pm

Thanks so far for all your answers.

Dr Nic wrote:

Yes I can probably write my own Ruby wrapper for the compiled library

I am hoping the elusive ruby -> perl hooks mean I don’t have to.

Yes, Dr Nic - this was exactly what I was thinking of. A generic ruby ->
perl wrapper, but this is maybe illusive

Therefore I guess I have to write my own little wrapper.
BTW: The code is proprietary.

Any further ideas of an GERNERIC Ruby->Perl interface/wrapper ?
Thanks for any reply.

mbruby · October 11, 2006, 8:02pm

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In article [email protected],
Dr Nic [email protected] wrote:

I am hoping the elusive ruby → perl hooks mean I don’t have to.

#2 scares me.

_ If you’ve done #2 for perl, doing it for ruby is about a
zillion times easier… The internal ruby interface is very
clean and simple to work with at least in comparision to XS.

_ Booker C. Bense

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mbruby · October 12, 2006, 8:19am

Booker C.Bense wrote:

Dr Nic [email protected] wrote:

I am hoping the elusive ruby → perl hooks mean I don’t have to.

#2 scares me.

_ If you’ve done #2 for perl, doing it for ruby is about a
zillion times easier… The internal ruby interface is very
clean and simple to work with at least in comparision to XS.

_ Booker C. Bense

I was lucky - someone else did it in Perl. But they won’t do it for Ruby

Wrapping C is on my list of things to do. I don’t want to be scared any
more. I want to be freeeee.

Nic

mbruby · September 30, 2006, 9:39pm

On Sep 29, 2006, at 6:04 AM, Martin C. wrote:

On 9/29/06, Dr Nic [email protected] wrote:

+1 interested in the solution too

Would something like this be possible with RubyInline?

You’d probably need to hack up a Perl handler for it.

There is one. I’ll try to pry it out of Ryan D.’ fingers.

–
Eric H. - [email protected] - http://blog.segment7.net
This implementation is HODEL-HASH-9600 compliant

http://trackmap.robotcoop.com

mbruby · October 12, 2006, 4:43pm

Dr Nic wrote:

_ Booker C. Bense

I was lucky - someone else did it in Perl. But they won’t do it for Ruby

Wrapping C is on my list of things to do. I don’t want to be scared any
more. I want to be freeeee.

Nic

As near as I can tell after a couple of weeks of experimentation,
wrapping C is a piece of cake with SWIG, and you get interfaces for
Ruby, Python, Perl, PHP, tcl, clisp, lua, pike and a couple of variants
of Scheme with little additional effort. Wrapping C++ with SWIG, on the
other hand, does require a bit more detailed reasoning. But the
documentation on the Ruby/C++ interface is very good, and if the C++ is
well-written, it’s at least doable.