Here's an ARC draft for the RubyOnRails components and a request for comments.
(I've also posted a copy at http://wikis.sun.com/display/WebStack/RoR_ARC_Case ) Thanks, -ps Including Ruby on Rails with Solaris - ARC Draft Prashant Srinivasan <Prashant.Srinivasan at Sun.COM> 26 September 2007 1. Summary and motivation This project delivers Ruby on Rails(RoR) set of components into Solaris. Ruby, the scripting language[1], and Rails, the associated web application framework[2], are fast gaining popularity, and their inclusion into Solaris will enable it to be a more attractive platform for Ruby/RoR developers and deployments. Certain extensions[section 3] to the Ruby language, and libraries [section 3], are also included based on the necessity for an end user to install such programs to have a functional Ruby/RoR stack. This case seeks Micro Release Binding. 2. Technical issues 2.1. Key objects. /usr/ruby/1.8.6/bin/cgi-fcgi /usr/ruby/1.8.6/bin/erb /usr/ruby/1.8.6/bin/gem /usr/ruby/1.8.6/bin/gem_mirror /usr/ruby/1.8.6/bin/gem_server /usr/ruby/1.8.6/bin/gemlock /usr/ruby/1.8.6/bin/gemri /usr/ruby/1.8.6/bin/gemwhich /usr/ruby/1.8.6/bin/gpgen /usr/ruby/1.8.6/bin/index_gem_repository.rb /usr/ruby/1.8.6/bin/irb /usr/ruby/1.8.6/bin/mongrel_rails /usr/ruby/1.8.6/bin/rails /usr/ruby/1.8.6/bin/rake /usr/ruby/1.8.6/bin/rdoc /usr/ruby/1.8.6/bin/redcloth /usr/ruby/1.8.6/bin/ri /usr/ruby/1.8.6/bin/ruby /usr/ruby/1.8.6/bin/testrb /usr/ruby/1.8.6/bin/update_rubygems All other objects will be contained within the /usr/ruby/[<version>.<subversion>.<minor-subversion>] hierarchy. 2.2. Versioning The Ruby development processes follow the ubiquitous "continuous development" model, typical of many Open Source projects. Currently, versions 1.8.6 patch update 5000 is the latest stable release. Ruby 1.9 is under development, slated for release in December 2007. The versioning model for Ruby is <version>.<subversion>.<minor-subversion>. Ruby 1.8.6 patchupdate 5000 is being included into Solaris. 2.3. Directory Naming and Structure The proposed directory layout for RoR is: /usr/ruby/[<version>.<subversion>.<minor-subversion>]/ bin include lib man share src /usr/ruby/ will expose bin, include, lib, man, share, and src directories. These will be symbolic links to corresponding directories in the highest numbered <version>.<subversion>.<minor-subversion> directory in /usr/ruby, hence, users will be able to use "/usr/ruby/bin/ruby" to invoke the most recent version. The detailed directory and file layout for RoR is provided in [7]. 2.4. Packaging and Delivery The current proposal allows for the inclusion and coexistence of multiple versions of Ruby by keeping each installation under a version-specific subdirectory. The proposed package, SUNWruby, will contain all the Ruby interfaces and the extensions an libraries that are installed into Ruby. The libraries(Ruby gems[4]) will be upgradeable using the gems package management interface over the internet, by connecting to a gem repository. This is a process similar to Perl's CPAN architecture[6]. Upgrades to the Ruby platform, when available will require upgrading the SUNWruby package. It is expected that users will have different versions of the package installed, since releases are not guaranteed to be compatible, and upstream applications "certify" to a particular <version>.<subversion>.<minor-subversion> of Ruby. 3. Ruby Extensions and Gems. Ruby supports a loadable module interface(known in Ruby parlance as "Extensions"), allowing the Ruby runtime to communicate with, and bind to, external interfaces. Extensions are implemented using a C interface. Extensions have an associated dynamically loadable shared object(*.so), and quite often two, since the extension itself usually loads another shared object. Gems[5] are Ruby libraries that are installed using the "gem" interface such that they are located in the default search path of the Ruby runtime. Some Ruby gems also include native extensions(Mongrel is an example). 3.1. Included Ruby Extensions and Gems. The initial integration will provide the following, a subset of the extant Ruby extensions and Gems, in addition to gems that are dependent on Rails. readline [command line support for Ruby and Rails] openssl [HTTPS support] readline [command line input processing for Ruby and Rails] tk [to support the TK toolkit] curses [terminal control library] openssl [HTTPS support] redcloth [Textile implementation] ruby-fcgi [fcgi support] rails [web application framework] mongrel [HTTP Server] redcloth [Textile parsing] Additional extensions can be delivered subsequent to the initial integration, depending on user community and customer requests. 4. Ruby and Rails Internationalization. Ruby offers the ability to use different character sets based on the value of a global variable, $KCODE. It does not have built in features for message localization. Rails, based on Ruby, offers the same support for Internationalization. 5. Ruby and Rails Documentation. Ruby and Rails are well documented[3][4]. The API documentation and a man page, a subset of the comprehensive documentation available on the internet, are available with the Ruby installation by invoking "ri". 5.1. Manual Pages. Ruby provides a man page, which will be delivered in the appropriate man directory [/usr/ruby/[<version>.<subversion>.<minor-subversion>]/man], with an appropriate symbolic link from /usr/ruby/man. The contents of this man page is provided in Addendum 1. A symbolic link will be created from the standard Solaris man page location(/usr/share/man/man1/ruby.1) to /usr/ruby/[<version>.<subversion>.<minor-subversion>]. 6. Interfaces 6.1. Interface Stability. The RoR stack, as a set of Open Source projects, is controlled by a group of developers external of, and independent from, SMI. These projects make no guarantees or promises of ABI or API compatibility between releases. 6.2. Imported Interfaces. NAME STABILITY NOTES OpenSSL [Secure Sockets Layer] External/Volatile PSARC/2003/500 Curses [CRT screen handling] Stable Readline[functions to edit command lines](statically linked into the Ruby executable) External PSARC 2007/188 Tcl/Tk Uncommitted PSARC 2007/317 6.3. Exported Interfaces. There are no advertised programmatic interfaces. NAME STABILITY NOTES SUNWruby Uncommitted Package Name /usr/ruby/[version]/bin/cgi-fcgi Uncommitted Executable /usr/ruby/[version]/bin/erb Uncommitted Executable /usr/ruby/[version]/bin/gem Uncommitted Executable /usr/ruby/[version]/bin/gem_mirror Uncommitted Executable /usr/ruby/[version]/bin/gem_server Uncommitted Executable /usr/ruby/[version]/bin/gemlock Uncommitted Executable /usr/ruby/[version]/bin/gemri Uncommitted Executable /usr/ruby/[version]/bin/gemwhich Uncommitted Executable /usr/ruby/[version]/bin/gpgen Uncommitted Executable /usr/ruby/[version]/bin/index_gem_repository.rb Uncommitted Executable /usr/ruby/[version]/bin/irb Uncommitted Executable /usr/ruby/[version]/bin/mongrel_rails Uncommitted Executable /usr/ruby/[version]/bin/rails Uncommitted Executable /usr/ruby/[version]/bin/rake Uncommitted Executable /usr/ruby/[version]/bin/rdoc Uncommitted Executable /usr/ruby/[version]/bin/redcloth Uncommitted Executable /usr/ruby/[version]/bin/ri Uncommitted Executable /usr/ruby/[version]/bin/ruby Uncommitted Executable /usr/ruby/[version]/bin/testrb Uncommitted Executable /usr/ruby/[version]/bin/update_rubygems Uncommitted Executable Extensions and Libraries NAME STABILITY NOTES readline Uncommitted Library to process command line input. Tk Uncommitted Extension to support the TK toolkit curses Uncommitted The terminal control library openssl Uncommitted HTTPS support redcloth Uncommitted Textile implementation ruby-fcgi Uncommitted fcgi for Apache/Lighttpd support by Ruby 7. References. [1] http://www.ruby-lang.org/ [2] http://www.rubyonrails.org/ [3] http://ruby-doc.org [4] http://api.rubyonrails.org [5] http://www.rubygems.org/ [6] http://www.cpan.org/ [7] http://wikis.sun.com/display/WebStack/Directory_and_File_Layout Addendum 1: Ruby man page. UNIX RUBY(1) NAME ruby - Interpreted object-oriented scripting language SYNOPSIS ruby [--copyright] [--version] [-Sacdlnpswvy] [-0[octal]] [-C directory] [-F pattern] [-I directory] [-K c] [-T[level]] [-e command] [-i[extension]] [-r library] [-x[directory]] [--] [program_file] [argument ...] DESCRIPTION Ruby is an interpreted scripting language for quick and easy object-oriented programming. It has many features to pro- cess text files and to do system management tasks (as in Perl). It is simple, straight-forward, and extensible. If you want a language for easy object-oriented programming, or you don't like the Perl ugliness, or you do like the con- cept of LISP, but don't like too much parentheses, Ruby may be the language of your choice. FEATURES Ruby's features are as follows: Interpretive Ruby is an interpreted language, so you don't have to recompile programs written in Ruby to execute them. Variables have no type (dynamic typing) Variables in Ruby can contain data of any type. You don't have to worry about variable typing. Conse- quently, it has a weaker compile time check. No declaration needed You can use variables in your Ruby programs without any declarations. Variable names denote their scope, local, global, instance, etc. Simple syntax Ruby has a simple syntax influenced slightly from Eif- fel. No user-level memory management Ruby has automatic memory management. Objects no longer referenced from anywhere are automatically col- lected by the garbage collector built into the inter- preter. December 3Last0change: Ruby Programmers Reference Guide 1 UNIX RUBY(1) Everything is an object Ruby is the purely object-oriented language, and was so since its creation. Even such basic data as integers are seen as objects. Class, inheritance, and methods Of course, as an object-oriented language, Ruby has such basic features like classes, inheritance, and methods. Singleton methods Ruby has the ability to define methods for certain objects. For example, you can define a press-button action for certain widget by defining a singleton method for the button. Or, you can make up your own prototype based object system using singleton methods, if you want to. Mix-in by modules Ruby intentionally does not have the multiple inheri- tance as it is a source of confusion. Instead, Ruby has the ability to share implementations across the inheritance tree. This is often called `Mix-in'. Iterators Ruby has iterators for loop abstraction. Closures In Ruby, you can objectify the procedure. Text processing and regular expression Ruby has a bunch of text processing features like in Perl. Bignums With built-in bignums, you can for example calculate factorial(400). Exception handling As in Java(tm). Direct access to the OS Ruby can use most UNIX system calls, often used in December 3Last0change: Ruby Programmers Reference Guide 2 UNIX RUBY(1) system programming. Dynamic loading On most UNIX systems, you can load object files into the Ruby interpreter on-the-fly. OPTIONS Ruby interpreter accepts following command-line options (switches). They are quite similar to those of perl(1). --copyright Prints the copyright notice. --version Prints the version of Ruby interpreter. -0[octal] (The digit ``zero''.) Specifies the input record separator ("$/") as an octal number. If no digit is given, the null character is taken as the separator. Other switches may follow the digits. -00 turns Ruby into paragraph mode. -0777 makes Ruby read whole file at once as a single string since there is no legal character with that value. -C directory Causes Ruby to switch to the directory. -F pattern Specifies input field separator ("$;"). -I directory Used to tell Ruby where to load the library scripts. Directory path will be added to the load-path variable ("$:"). -K kcode Specifies KANJI (Japanese) encoding. -S Makes Ruby use the PATH environment variable to search for script, unless if its name begins with a slash. This is used to emulate #! on machines that don't December 3Last0change: Ruby Programmers Reference Guide 3 UNIX RUBY(1) support it, in the following manner: #! /usr/ruby/bin/ruby # This line makes the next one a comment in Ruby \ exec /usr/ruby/bin/ruby -S $0 $* -T[level] Turns on taint checks at the specified level (default 1). -a Turns on auto-split mode when used with -n or -p. In auto-split mode, Ruby executes $F = $_.split at beginning of each loop. -c Causes Ruby to check the syntax of the script and exit without executing. If there are no syntax errors, Ruby will print ``Syntax OK'' to the standard output. -d --debug Turns on debug mode. "$DEBUG" will be set to true. -e command Specifies script from command-line while telling Ruby not to search the rest of arguments for a script file name. -h --help Prints a summary of the options. -i extension Specifies in-place-edit mode. The extension, if speci- fied, is added to old file name to make a backup copy. For example: % echo matz > /tmp/junk % cat /tmp/junk matz % ruby -p -i.bak -e '$_.upcase!' /tmp/junk % cat /tmp/junk MATZ December 3Last0change: Ruby Programmers Reference Guide 4 UNIX RUBY(1) % cat /tmp/junk.bak matz -l (The lowercase letter ``ell''.) Enables automatic line-ending processing, which means to firstly set "$\" to the value of "$/", and secondly chops every line read using chop!. -n Causes Ruby to assume the following loop around your script, which makes it iterate over file name arguments somewhat like sed -n or awk. while gets ... end -p Acts mostly same as -n switch, but print the value of variable "$_" at the each end of the loop. For exam- ple: % echo matz | ruby -p -e '$_.tr! "a-z", "A-Z"' MATZ -r library Causes Ruby to load the library using require. It is useful when using -n or -p. -s Enables some switch parsing for switches after script name but before any file name arguments (or before a --). Any switches found there are removed from ARGV and set the corresponding variable in the script. For example: #! /usr/local/bin/ruby -s # prints "true" if invoked with `-xyz' switch. print "true\n" if $xyz On some systems "$0" does not always contain the full pathname, so you need the -S switch to tell Ruby to search for the script if necessary. To handle embedded spaces or such. A better construct than "$*" would be ${1+"$@"}, but it does not work if the script is being interpreted by csh(1). -v December 3Last0change: Ruby Programmers Reference Guide 5 UNIX RUBY(1) --verbose Enables verbose mode. Ruby will print its version at the beginning, and set the variable "$VERBOSE" to true. Some methods print extra messages if this variable is true. If this switch is given, and no other switches are present, Ruby quits after printing its version. -w Enables verbose mode without printing version message at the beginning. It sets the "$VERBOSE" variable to true. -x[directory] Tells Ruby that the script is embedded in a message. Leading garbage will be discarded until the first that starts with ``#!'' and contains the string, ``ruby''. Any meaningful switches on that line will applied. The end of script must be specified with either EOF, "^D" ("control-D"), "^Z" ("control-Z"), or reserved word __END__. If the directory name is specified, Ruby will switch to that directory before executing script. -y --yydebug Turns on compiler debug mode. Ruby will print a bunch of internal state messages during compiling scripts. You don't have to specify this switch, unless you are going to debug the Ruby interpreter. ENVIRONMENT RUBYLIB A colon-separated list of directories that are added to Ruby's library load path ("$:"). Directories from this environment variable are searched before the standard load path is searched. e.g.: RUBYLIB="$HOME/lib/ruby:$HOME/lib/rubyext" RUBYOPT Additional Ruby options. e.g. RUBYOPT="-w -Ke" RUBYPATH December 3Last0change: Ruby Programmers Reference Guide 6 UNIX RUBY(1) A colon-separated list of directories that Ruby searches for Ruby programs when the -S flag is speci- fied. This variable precedes the PATH environment variable. RUBYSHELL The path to the system shell command. This environment variable is enabled for only mswin32, mingw32, and OS/2 platforms. If this variable is not defined, Ruby refers to COMSPEC. PATH Ruby refers to the PATH environment variable on calling Kernel#system. RUBYLIB_PREFIX This variable is obsolete. AUTHORS Ruby is designed and implemented by Yukihiro Matsumoto <matz at netlab.jp>. December 3Last0change: Ruby Programmers Reference Guide 7 -- Prashant Srinivasan F/OSS Enthusiast Sun Microsystems, Inc. http://blogs.sun.com/prashant GnuPG key: http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x82FBDE5A
