# RubyPython

* [RubyPython](http://bitbucket.org/raineszm/rubypython/)

## DESCRIPTION:

RubyPython is a bridge between the Ruby and Python interpreters. It embeds a
running Python interpreter in the application's process using FFI and
provides a means for wrapping and converting Python objects.
 
## FEATURES/PROBLEMS:

### Features

* Can handle simple conversion of Python builtin types to Ruby builtin types and vice versa
* Can import Python modules
* Can execute arbitrary methods on imported modules and return the result
* Python objects can be treated as Ruby objects!
* Python's standard library available to you from within Ruby.
* Pass Ruby methods and procs as callbacks and call them from within Python code.
* Specify the python executable to be loaded.

### Known Problems

* Builtin Python methods which require a top level frame object (eval, dir, ...) do not work properly at present.
* There is no support for passing more complicated Ruby types to Python.

## SYNOPSIS:
RubyPython lets you leverage the power of the Python standard library while
using the syntactical power of ruby. Using RubyPython you can write code such
as:

    RubyPython.start
    cPickle = RubyPython.import("cPickle")
    p cPickle.dumps("RubyPython is awesome!").rubify
    RubyPython.stop

The main point of the gem is to allow access to tools that are not readily availible in Ruby. However, it is clear that many people may wish to use Ruby tools with Python code bases using this library. The largest problem in this case is that there is no support for passing Ruby classes, procs, or methods to Python. That being said, with some creative coding it is still possible to do a lot.

One caveat is that it may be tempting to try to translate Python code to Ruby code directly using RubyPython. However, it often makes much more sense to use idiomatic Ruby code where possible. For example if we have the following Python code:

    import library
    for i in library.a_list:
      print(library.function_call(i))

If we wanted for some reason to migrate this to RubyPython, we could do it as follows:

    RubyPython.start
    library = RubyPython.import 'library'
    library.a_list.to_a.each { |i| puts library.function_call(i).rubify }
    RubyPython.stop

There are several things to note about the code above:

1. We made sure to call RubyPython.start before doing anything with the Python interpreter.
1. We manually bound our imported library to a local variable. RubyPython will not do that for us.
1. We used to\_a to convert a python iterable type to a Ruby array.
1. We called rubify before we printed the objects so that they would be displayed as native Ruby objects.
1. We stopped the interpreter after we were done with RubyPython.stop.
	
## REQUIREMENTS:
	
* Python >= 2.4, < 3.0
* Ruby >= 1.8.6
* You must be able to build the ffi gem under your environment.

Note: RubyPython has been tested on Mac OS 10.5.x
	
	
## INSTALL:

[sudo] gem install rubypython

## DOCUMENTATION:

The documentation should provide a reasonable description of how to use RubyPython.
Starting with version 0.3.x there are two modes of operation: normal and
legacy. These are described in the docs.

The most useful to check out [docs](http://rubydoc.info/gems/rubypython/) will be those for RubyPython and RubyPython::RubyPyProxy.
	
## LICENSE:

(The MIT License)

Copyright (c) 2008-2011 Zach Raines

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining
a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the
'Software'), to deal in the Software without restriction, including
without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish,
distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to
permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to
the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be
included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED 'AS IS', WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND,
EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF
MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT.
IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY
CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT,
TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE
SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.