Running two different interpreters on same script

Question

I have a script written in Ironruby that uses a C# .dll to retrieve a hash. I then use that hash throughout the rest of my Ruby code. I would rather not run my entire script off of the Ironruby interpreter. Is there anyway to run a section of code on the IR interpreter, get the hash, and execute the rest of the code via the regular Ruby interpreter?

Thanks

Answer 1

One possible solution is to split up the script into two parts, the first part executed by iron ruby has to save his state in a yaml file before handing control to the second part which will run by ruby

here a small demo:

C:\devkit\home\demo>demo
"running program:demo_ir.rb"
"the first part of the script running by the iron_ruby interpreter"
"my_hash attributes:"
"attr1: first value"
"attr2: second value"
"attr3: 2012"
"hash_store_filename:temp.yaml"
"running program:demo_ruby.rb"
"hash_store_filename:temp.yaml"
"the second part of the script running by ruby 1.8.x interpreter"
"my_hash attributes:"
"attr1: first value"
"attr2: second value"
"attr3: 2012"

here the source of the first part for ironruby (demo_ir.rb):

require "yaml"
p "running program:#{$0}"
hash_store_filename = ARGV[0]

my_hash = { attr1: 'first value', attr2: 'second value', attr3: 2012}

p "the first part of the script running by the iron_ruby interpreter" 
p "my_hash attributes:"
p "attr1: #{my_hash[:attr1]}"
p "attr2: #{my_hash[:attr2]}"
p "attr3: #{my_hash[:attr3]}"

# save the state of the script in an array where my_hash is the first element
p "hash_store_filename:#{hash_store_filename}"
File.open( hash_store_filename, 'w' ) do |out|
  YAML.dump( [my_hash], out )
end

here the code of the second part for ruby 1.8 (demo_ruby.rb)

require "yaml"
p "running program:#{$0}"
hash_store_filename = ARGV[0]
p "hash_store_filename:#{hash_store_filename}"
ar = YAML.load_file(hash_store_filename)
my_hash=ar[0]

p "the second part of the script running by ruby 1.8.x interpreter"
p "my_hash attributes:"
p "attr1: #{my_hash[:attr1]}"
p "attr2: #{my_hash[:attr2]}"
p "attr3: #{my_hash[:attr3]}"

and the launcher:

@ECHO OFF
REM file: demo.bat
SET TEMP_YAML=temp.yaml
ir demo_ir.rb %TEMP_YAML%
ruby demo_ruby.rb %TEMP_YAML%
del %TEMP_YAML%

if you run the script in a concurrent environment you can generate a unique temporary name of the yaml file in the ironruby script avoiding that two process ( or thread ) try to write the same file.

If you prefer you could use some C# line of code, instead of a .bat, to integrate the two parts of the script, but this is a is a bit more difficult (IMHO)

I successfully test this solution using:

C:\devkit\home\demo>ir -v
IronRuby 1.1.3.0 on .NET 4.0.30319.239

C:\devkit\home\demo>ruby -v
ruby 1.8.7 (2011-12-28 patchlevel 357) [i386-mingw32]

ask if you need some clarification