[Rubygems-developers] Binary gems or extension source - which and how?

[Clifford Heath]

On 22/05/2008, at 3:02 PM, Luis Lavena wrote:
> you mention a bundle file, but then a require 'wbxml.so'?

Actually there's something in Rubygems that will load a bundle
even if you require .so - I think it'll also load a DLL on windows
if you ask for an so... just to make life easier.

> first of you need to remove extensions from your requires, that breaks
> compatibility since OSX uses 'bundle' and Linux/Windows uses 'so' as
> extensions for the shared objects.

I don't think so. Quite a few gems require *.so, and work cross- 
platform.
Look at RMagick for example.

> I suggest you take a look at DrNic post about newgem generators
> related to building C extensions:
>
> http://drnicwilliams.com/2008/04/01/writing-c-extensions-in-rubygems/

Yes, did that yesterday, he doesn't answer the questions I asked.

> Are you trying to build a native (pre-build) platform specific gem?

I was... not now. It's what I did in the past with the one-wire gem too,
especially since Windows users often don't have a C compiler. I still
haven't learnt how to do that properly, but for now, it's not needed.

Thanks,

Clifford Heath.