Very new to Ruby--needs help

ruby-talk
1

Dear Ruby Gurus,

I would like to load a *.lib file into my *.rb file. How to do that. I
did mentioned the path but was not successful. I did this:

load (or require) "PATH name:*.lib"

thx,
Mankan

2

Beginner wrote:

Dear Ruby Gurus,

I would like to load a *.lib file into my *.rb file. How to do that. I
did mentioned the path but was not successful. I did this:

load (or require) "PATH name:*.lib"

What is in the .lib file?

If it is ruby code (in which case you should just
change it to .rb anyway:),

  require "#{path}/foobar.lib"

Should work fine.

If it is object code, I believe ruby can only load
.so (and, I assume, .dll) files so you may need to
extract the shared library.

If it is just plain text or something, you would
want to use File.open(filename) {|f| do_something_with f }.

Please clarify a bit and I am sure we can help you
get it working right!

thx,
Mankan

E

···

--
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/\.

3

Dear Eero,

Thank you very much. it is a low-level APIs named power32.lib and I
would like to call this APIs from ruby to find the hardware parameters
like number of boards etc.

Hence I am looking for loading this power32.lib file and then call the
low-level API from Ruby.

Pls do let me know if the question is still not clear.

thx in advance,
Mankan

4

Dear Eero,

I am not able to load even .dll, this is what I did:

require "C:\\WINDOWS\\SYSTEM32\\abc.dll"

I am doing anything wrong. The .dll does exist in the directory, I get
the erro, "the specified procedure could not be found".(loadError)

thx,
Mankan

5

Beginner wrote:

Dear Eero,

I am not able to load even .dll, this is what I did:

require "C:\\WINDOWS\\SYSTEM32\\abc.dll"

I am doing anything wrong. The .dll does exist in the directory, I get
the erro, "the specified procedure could not be found".(loadError)

thx,
Mankan

The "require" statement loads Ruby extensions, either those written in pure Ruby or those written in C using the Ruby extension API. So you can't use it to interface to an arbitrary .dll or .lib file.

There is a Ruby library that allows you to call functions in .dll files, though. Check out the Win32API class: http://www.rubycentral.com/book/lib_windows.html

You might also learn more about the Win32API library by searching through old postings to this list. Search for "Win32API".

Welcome to Ruby!

6

Is abc.dll the dll associated with power32.lib? Or just an example. I
am unfamiliar (as is at least a cursory Google :slight_smile: with this
particular library. Without a specific API document, I doubt we can
provide you with the level of detail you will need at this stage in
your programming career.

From a high level there are two ways normally used to access external
libraries from within Ruby:

1. Create an extension -- this requires a certain amount of C
programming either by hand or using something like SWIG.

2. Or using DL (http://ttsky.net/ruby/ruby-dl.html\)

If you can provide a specific API for the library you may get some
additional help (even more so if the library in question is free/open
source).

Good Luck

···

On 12/20/05, Beginner <smankan@ueidaq.com> wrote:

I am not able to load even .dll, this is what I did:

require "C:\\WINDOWS\\SYSTEM32\\abc.dll"

7

Thank you Timothy and Patrick, I got the answer to what I am looking
for.

-Mankna