Using external libraries in Ruby

2
votes

I have compiled a library(GDAL) written in C/C++ with Ruby bindings.

After a ran make install it was installed under 

/Users/igor/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p136/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.9.1/x86_64-darwin10.6.0/

There is a directory there called "gdal" with 4 files inside: gdal.so, gdalconst.so, ogr.so, osr.so

What I want now is to use these libraries in my project. The problem is that when I try to referense these files

require 'gdal/gdal'

I get

LoadError: no such file to load -- gdal/gdal from :29:in require' from <internal:lib/rubygems/custom_require>:29:in require' from (irb):1 from /Users/igor/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p136/bin/irb:16:in `'

When I run ruby -e 'puts $:' I get following output:

/Users/igor/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p136/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.9.1

/Users/igor/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p136/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.9.1/x86_64-darwin10.6.0

/Users/igor/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p136/lib/ruby/site_ruby

/Users/igor/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p136/lib/ruby/vendor_ruby/1.9.1

/Users/igor/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p136/lib/ruby/vendor_ruby/1.9.1/x86_64-darwin10.6.0

/Users/igor/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p136/lib/ruby/vendor_ruby

/Users/igor/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p136/lib/ruby/1.9.1

/Users/igor/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p136/lib/ruby/1.9.1/x86_64-darwin10.6.0

Any ideas why it doesn't work for me?

3
ruby

3 Answers

1
votes

After make install on OS X you should have a .bundle file in your path /Users/igor/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p136/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.9.1/x86_64-darwin10.6.0.

If you want to use it then, you just have to require 'gdal' and it should fine.

1
votes

It looks like you are not using a extconf.rb file to help you generate your makefile. You might want to read this tutorial and check Rice if you want to write a C++ extension. (Ruby is written in C and you need to expose a C API, Rice makes that easier).

0
votes

Thank you guys for your suggestions. I've finally figured out the problem. It seems like the fact that I was using rvm to manage ruby versions was causing the problem. As soon as I switched to system default(rvm use system) everything worked out well.