Open Source Ecosystems

About

This is a project that will build the current mruby source into a XCode framework. That framework can then be used to embed Ruby into an iOS application.

For a complete example of using the product of the build check out MRubyiOSExample

This is not an attempt to make a bridge between Objective-C and Ruby, if you want that then check out the mobiruby project.

Build

git clone git://github.com/carsonmcdonald/ios-ruby-embedded.git
cd ios-ruby-embedded
git submodule init
git submodule update
rake

After the above steps you should have a complete MRuby.framework framework structure that is ready to use.

Install

To install the framework in an XCode project follow these steps (these steps assume XCode 5.0.x):

Select the top of the project on the left hand project display
Select the "Build Phases" tab in the project details
Click the + button under the "Link Binary With Libraries" dropdown
Select "Add Other..." from the framework add popup
Navigate to the MRuby.framework direcotry in the file browser and click
"Open"

Example Use

Assume you have the following simple Ruby script you want to execute:

puts "Hello world"

First you need to compile the script into byte code using the mrbc command that can be found in the bin directory after you have compiled the project:

mrbc helloworld.rb

The output of that command is a bytecode file that can be run using the mruby command found in the same bin directory. NB you currently need to cat all your script files together before compiling the, using require doesn't work.

Once you have compiled your Ruby code and added it to your application bundle you can embed it in your app using something like the following code:

#include "mruby/mruby.h"
#include "mruby/mruby/proc.h"
#include "mruby/mruby/dump.h"

// ...

    NSString *bcfile = [[[NSBundle mainBundle] resourcePath] stringByAppendingPathComponent:@"helloworld.mrb"];
    
    mrb_state *mrb = mrb_open();    
    FILE *fp = fopen([bcfile UTF8String], "rb");
    if (fp == NULL) {
        NSLog(@"Error loading file...");
    } else {
        int n = mrb_read_irep_file(mrb, fp);
        fclose(fp);
        
        mrb_run(mrb, mrb_proc_new(mrb, mrb->irep[n]), mrb_top_self(mrb));
    }

Notes

mruby is new and changing constantly, don't be surprised if this project
doesn't build.
Currently you can't use the mruby compiler while embedded in an arm7 device.
That is why you need to pre-compile the code using mrbc. It will work on the
simulator but don't let that fool you into thinking it will work on a device.
An app created to compile code would almost certainly have other issues.