kerri l. wrote in post #1061429:
I have been reading the book (Pragmatic Programmers) and I'm having
trouble. When I make a folder and right-click to create a "New" Ruby
Program, the option for Ruby is not there. So I used Text Doc and saved
as .rb (found on a website to use this). It saves as a Ruby Program, but
I cannot open or edit the program. It starts to open and then closes
before the window even open properly. Am I doing something wrong?
Also, when I tried to Command Promt to run the program, it kept telling
me it was not valid. Please help.
I am running Windows 7 and trying to use the latest Ruby download from
the site.
Thanks
The book assumes that you have prerequisite knowledge of your OS, in
this case Windows 7, and you obviously do not.
So, here's a quick primer:
Ruby is an application that interprets a source code text file as a
program it can run. Windows only has "create new" entries that came
default with Windows (like "create new text file") or that were
installed by other Windows aware applications. Ruby is a cross-platform
application that is not specific to Windows and, therefore, does not
install a "create new Ruby program" entry.
A Ruby source code file is simply a text file that you create and edit
with any text editor, and that is saved with the extension ".rb"
(Optional but recommended). A source code aware text editor, like JEdit
(open-source at http://www.jEdit.org), would be more helpful since it
will support automatic indenting and language-specific syntax coloring.
When you click on a file (or double-click if you have single-click
disabled), the OS looks up any application registered to handle an
input file with that extension. In the case of ".rb", a properly
installed Ruby interpreter will be registered and it will be run with
that file as input. Since this was not done from within a console
window, the interpreter runs the program and immediately exits. Any
output is lost.
You run your Ruby source code file using the Ruby interpreter from a
console window ("Start:Accessories:Command Prompt" or cmd.exe). Within
the console window, run "ruby -v" to see if Ruby is on your application
path. If you get a "not recognized" error, insert the Ruby application
path into your path environment variable with
> PATH=<Full path to Ruby installation>\bin;%PATH%
Replace <Full path to Ruby installation> with the installation path on
your computer. For example:
> PATH=C:\Ruby193\bin;%PATH%
Change the current directory to where you saved your Ruby source code
file.
> cd <path>
Now run the Ruby interpreter with your source code file:
> ruby <source code file name>
(Don't forget to include the ".rb" extension if you saved it that way.)
The Ruby interpreter will interpret the give source code file and run
the program it describes, printing output text to the console window.
That should get you quickly up and running into the miserably documented
world of Ruby. Soon, you too will pine for those happy days when you
couldn't even run it. <evil grin>
Enjoy!
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