The FXRuby API follows the FOX API very closely and for the most part, you should be able to use the standard FOX class documentation as a reference. In some cases, however, fundamental differences between Ruby and C++ necessitated slight changes in the API. For some other cases, FOX classes were enhanced to take advantage of Ruby language features (such as iterators). The purpose of this chapter is to identify some of the differences between the C++ and Ruby interfaces to FOX.
One difference that should be easy to cope with is the substitution of Ruby Strings for FXStrings. Any function that would normally expect an FXString input argument insteads takes a Ruby String. Similarly, functions that would return an FXString will instead return a Ruby string. For functions that would normally accept a NULL or empty string argument, just pass nil or an empty string ("").
One common pattern in FOX member function argument lists is to expect a pointer to an array of values, followed by an integer indicating the number of values in the array. This of course isn't necessary in Ruby, where Array objects "know" their lengths. As a result, functions such as FXWindow::acquireClipboard(), whose C++ declaration looks like this:
FXbool acquireClipboard(const FXDragType *types, FXuint numTypes); |
are called from Ruby code by passing in a single Array argument, e.g.
myWindow.acquireClipboard(typesArray) |
Many FOX methods take advantage of the C++ language feature of returning values by reference. For example, the getCursorPos() member function for class FXWindow has the declaration:
FXint getCursorPos(FXint& x, FXint& y, FXint& buttons) const; |
which indicates that the function takes references to three integers (x, y and buttons). To call this function from a C++ program, you'd write code like this:
FXint x, y; FXuint buttons; if (window->getCursorPosition(x, y, buttons)) fprintf(stderr, "Current position is (%d, %d)\n", x, y); |
Since this idiom doesn't translate well to Ruby, some functions' interfaces have been slightly modified. For example, the FXRuby implementation of getCursorPos() returns the three values as an Array, e.g.:
x, y, buttons = aWindow.getCursorPos() |
The following table shows how these kinds of functions are implemented in FXRuby:
| Instance Method | Return Value |
|---|---|
| FXDial#range | Returns a Range instance. |
| FXDial#range=(aRange) | Accepts a Range instance as its input. |
| FXFontDialog#fontSelection | Returns the FXFontDesc instance |
| FXFontSelector#fontSelection | Returns the FXFontDesc instance |
| FXGLObject#bounds(range) | Takes an FXRange instance as its input and returns a (possibly modified) FXRange instance. |
| FXGLViewer#eyeToScreen(eye) | Takes an array of eye coordinates (floats) as its input and returns the screen point coordinate as an array of integers [sx, sy] |
| FXGLViewer#getBoreVector(sx, sy) | Returns the endpoint and direction vector as an array of arrays [point, dir] |
| FXGLViewer#light | Returns a FXLight instance |
| FXGLViewer#viewport | Returns an FXViewport instance. |
| FXPrinterDialog#printer | Returns the FXPrinter instance |
| FXScrollArea#position | Returns the position as an array of integers [x, y] |
| FXSlider#range | Returns a Range instance. |
| FXSlider#range=(aRange) | Accepts a Range instance as its input. |
| FXSpinner#range | Returns a Range instance. |
| FXSpinner#range=(aRange) | Accepts a Range instance as its input. |
| FXText#appendText(text, notify=false) | Append text to the end of the buffer. |
| FXText#appendStyledText(text, style=0, notify=false) | Append styled text to the end of the buffer. |
| FXText#extractText(pos, n) | Extracts n characters from the buffer beginning at position pos and returns the result as a String. |
| FXText#extractStyle(pos, n) | Extracts n style characters from the buffer beginning at position pos and returns the result as a String. |
| FXText#insertText(pos, text, notify=false) | Insert text at position pos in the buffer. |
| FXText#insertStyledText(pos, text, style=0, notify=false) | Insert text at position pos in the buffer. |
| FXText#replaceText(pos, m, text, notify=false) | Replace m characters at pos by text. |
| FXText#replaceStyledText(pos, m, text, style=0, notify=false) | Replace m characters at pos by text. |
| FXText#setDelimiters(delimiters) | Change delimiters of words (delimiters is a string). |
| FXText#getDelimiters() | Return word delimiters as a string. |
| FXWindow#cursorPosition | Returns an array of integers [x, y, buttons] |
| FXWindow#translateCoordinatesFrom(window, x, y) | Returns the translated coordinates as an array [x, y] |
| FXWindow#translateCoordinatesTo(window, x, y) | Returns the translated coordinates as an array [x, y] |
Several classes have been extended with an each method to provide Ruby-style iterators. These classes include FXComboBox, FXGLGroup, FXHeader, FXIconList, FXList, FXListBox, FXTreeItem, FXTreeList and FXTreeListBox. These classes also mix-in Ruby's Enumerable module so that you can take full advantage of the iterators.
The block parameters passed to your code block vary depending on the class. For example, iterating over an FXList instance yields FXListItem parameters:
aList.each { |aListItem|
puts "text for this item = #{aListItem.getText()}"
} |
whereas iterating over an FXComboBox instance yields two parameters, the item text (a string) and the item data:
aComboBox.each { |itemText, itemData|
puts "text for this item = #{itemText}"
} |
The following table shows the block parameters for each of these classes' iterators:
| Class | Block Parameters |
|---|---|
| FXComboBox | the item text (a string) and user data |
| FXGLGroup | an FXGLObject instance |
| FXHeader | an FXHeaderItem instance |
| FXIconList | an FXIconItem instance |
| FXList | an FXListItem instance |
| FXListBox | the item text (a string), icon (an FXIcon instance) and user data |
| FXTreeItem | an FXTreeItem instance |
| FXTreeList | an FXTreeItem instance |
| FXTreeListBox | an FXTreeItem instance |
FOX strictly handles access to all object attributes through member functions, e.g. setBackgroundColor and getBackgroundColor or setText and getText. FXRuby exposes all of these functions but also provides aliases that look more like regular Ruby attribute accessors. The names for these accessors are based on the FOX method names; for example, setBackgroundColor and getBackgroundColor are aliased to backgroundColor= and backgroundColor, respectively.
In many cases these aliases allow you to write more compact and legible code. For example, consider this code snippet:
aLabel.setText(aLabel.getText() + " (modified)") |
Now consider a different code snippet, using the aliased accessor method names:
aLabel.text += " (modified)" |
While these two are functionally equivalent, the latter is a bit easier to read and understand at first glance.
FOX message maps are implemented as static C++ class members. With FXRuby, you just associate messages with message handlers in the class initialize method using the FXMAPFUNC(), FXMAPTYPE(), FXMAPTYPES() or FXMAPFUNCS() methods. See almost any of the example programs for examples of how this is done.
As in C++ FOX, the last argument passed to your message handler functions contains message-specific data. For instance, all SEL_PAINT messages pass an FXEvent object through this argument to give you some information about the size of the exposed rectangle. On the other hand, a SEL_COMMAND message from an FXHeader object passes the index of the selected header item through this argument. Instead of guessing what's in this last argument, your best bet is to instead invoke a member function on the sending object to find out what you need, instead of relying on the data passed through this pointer. For example, if you get a SEL_COMMAND message from an FXColorWell object, the data passed through that last argument is supposed to be the new RGB color value. Instead of trying to interpret the argument's contents, just turn around and call the color well's getRGBA() member function to retrieve its color. Similarly, if you get a SEL_COMMAND message from a tree list, call its getCurrentItem() method to find out which item was selected.
The FXApp#addSignal and FXApp#removeSignal methods have been enhanced to accept either a string or integer as their first argument. If it's a string (e.g. "SIGINT" or just "INT") the code will determine the corresponding signal number for you (similar to the standard Ruby library's Process.kill module method). For examples of how to use this, see the datatarget.rb or imageviewer.rb example programs.
There is some support for multithreaded FXRuby applications, but it's not wonderful. The current implementation does what is also done in Ruby/GTK; it turns over some idle processing time to the Ruby thread scheduler to let other threads do their thing. As I learn more about Ruby's threading implementation I may try something different, but this seems to work OK for now. For a simple example, see the groupbox.rb example program, in which the clock label that appears in the lower right-hand corner is continuously updated (by a separate thread).
If you suspect that FXRuby's threads support is interfering with your application's performance, you may want to try tweaking the amount of time that the main application thread "sleeps" during idle processing; do this by setting the FXApp object's sleepTime attribute. The default value for FXApp#sleepTime is 100 milliseconds. You can also disable the threads support completely by calling FXApp#threadsEnabled=false (and subsequently re-enable it with FXApp#threadsEnabled=true).
As a debugging tool, you can optionally catch exceptions raised in message handlers. To turn on this feature, call the setIgnoreExceptions(true) module method. When this is enabled, any exceptions raised in message handler functions will cause a standard stack trace to be dumped to the standard output, but then your application will, for better or worse, proceed normally. Thanks to Ted Meng for this suggestion.