Ruby Programming
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Ruby Programming

Table of Contents

Foreword

Preface

• Ruby Sparkles
• What Kind of Language Is Ruby?
• Is Ruby for Me?
• Why Did We Write This Book?
• Ruby Versions
• Installing Ruby
• Building Ruby
• Running Ruby
• Interactive Ruby
• Ruby Programs
• Resources
• Acknowledgments
• Notation Conventions

Roadmap

Ruby.new

• Ruby Is an Object-Oriented Language
• Some Basic Ruby
• Arrays and Hashes
• Control Structures
• Regular Expressions
• Blocks and Iterators
• Reading and 'Riting
• Onward and Upward

Classes, Objects, and Variables

• Inheritance and Messages
• Inheritance and Mixins
• Objects and Attributes
• Writable Attributes
• Virtual Attributes
• Class Variables and Class Methods
• Class Variables
• Class Methods
• Singletons and Other Constructors
• Access Control
• Specifying Access Control
• Variables

Containers, Blocks, and Iterators

• Containers
• Arrays
• Hashes
• Implementing a SongList Container
• Blocks and Iterators
• Implementing Iterators
• Ruby Compared with C++ and Java
• Blocks for Transactions
• Blocks Can Be Closures

Standard Types

• Numbers
• Strings
• Working with Strings
• Ranges
• Ranges as Sequences
• Ranges as Conditions
• Ranges as Intervals
• Regular Expressions
• Patterns
• Anchors
• Character Classes
• Repetition
• Alternation
• Grouping
• Pattern-Based Substitution
• Backslash Sequences in the Substitution
• Object-Oriented Regular Expressions

More About Methods

• Defining a Method
• Variable-Length Argument Lists
• Methods and Blocks
• Calling a Method
• Expanding Arrays in Method Calls
• Making Blocks More Dynamic
• Collecting Hash Arguments

Expressions

• Operator Expressions
• Miscellaneous Expressions
• Command Expansion
• Backquotes Are Soft
• Assignment
• Parallel Assignment
• Nested Assignments
• Other Forms of Assignment
• Conditional Execution
• Boolean Expressions
• Defined?, And, Or, and Not
• If and Unless Expressions
• If and Unless Modifiers
• Case Expressions
• Loops
• Iterators
• For ... In
• Break, Redo, and Next
• Retry
• Variable Scope and Loops

Exceptions, Catch, and Throw

• The Exception Class
• Handling Exceptions
• Tidying Up
• Play It Again
• Raising Exceptions
• Adding Information to Exceptions
• Catch and Throw

Modules

• Namespaces
• Mixins
• Instance Variables in Mixins
• Iterators and the Enumerable Module
• Including Other Files

Basic Input and Output

• What Is an IO Object?
• Opening and Closing Files
• Reading and Writing Files
• Iterators for Reading
• Writing to Files
• But I Miss My C++ Iostream
• Talking to Networks

Threads and Processes

• Multithreading
• Creating Ruby Threads
• Manipulating Threads
• Thread Variables
• Threads and Exceptions
• Controlling the Thread Scheduler
• Mutual Exclusion
• The Mutex Class
• Condition Variables
• Running Multiple Processes
• Spawning New Processes
• Independent Children
• Blocks and Subprocesses

When Trouble Strikes

• Ruby Debugger
• Interactive Ruby
• Editor Support
• But It Doesn't Work!
• But It's Too Slow!
• Create Locals Outside Blocks
• Use the Profiler

Ruby and Its World

• Command-Line Arguments
• Command-Line Options
• ARGV
• Program Termination
• Environment Variables
• Writing to Environment Variables
• Where Ruby Finds Its Modules
• Build Environment

Ruby and the Web

• Writing CGI Scripts
• Using cgi.rb
• Quoting
• Forms
• Creating Forms and HTML
• Cookies
• Sessions
• Embedding Ruby in HTML
• Using eruby
• Installing eruby in Apache
• Improving Performance

Ruby Tk

• Simple Tk Application
• Widgets
• Setting Widget Options
• Getting Widget Data
• Setting/Getting Options Dynamically
• Sample Application
• Binding Events
• Canvas
• Scrolling
• Just One More Thing
• Translating from Perl/Tk Documentation
• Object Creation
• Options
• Variable References

Ruby and Microsoft Windows

• Ruby Ports
• Running Ruby Under Windows
• Win32API
• Windows Automation
• Getting and Setting Properties
• Named Arguments
• for each
• An Example
• Optimizing

Extending Ruby

• Ruby Objects in C
• VALUE as a Pointer
• VALUE as an Immediate Object
• Writing Ruby in C
• Evaluating Ruby Expressions in C
• Sharing Data Between Ruby and C
• Directly Sharing Variables
• Wrapping C Structures
• An Example
• Memory Allocation
• Creating an Extension
• Creating a Makefile with extconf.rb
• Static Linking
• Embedding a Ruby Interpreter
• Bridging Ruby to Other Languages
• Ruby C Language API

The Ruby Language

• Source Layout
• BEGIN and END Blocks
• General Delimited Input
• The Basic Types
• Integer and Floating Point Numbers
• Strings
• Ranges
• Arrays
• Hashes
• Requirements for a Hash Key
• Symbols
• Regular Expressions
• Regular Expression Options
• Regular Expression Patterns
• Substitutions
• Extensions
• Names
• Variable/Method Ambiguity
• Variables and Constants
• Scope of Constants and Variables

Classes and Objects

• How Classes and Objects Interact
• Your Basic, Everyday Object
• Object-Specific Classes
• Mixin Modules
• Extending Objects
• Class and Module Definitions
• Class Names Are Constants
• Top-Level Execution Environment
• Inheritance and Visibility
• Freezing Objects

Locking Ruby in the Safe

• Safe Levels
• Tainted Objects

Reflection, ObjectSpace, and Distributed Ruby

• Looking at Objects
• Looking Inside Objects
• Looking at Classes
• Looking Inside Classes
• Calling Methods Dynamically
• Performance Considerations
• System Hooks
• Runtime Callbacks
• Tracing Your Program's Execution
• How Did We Get Here?
• Marshaling and Distributed Ruby
• Custom Serialization Strategy
• Distributed Ruby
• Compile Time? Runtime? Anytime!

Built-in Classes and Methods

Standard Library

Object-Oriented Design Libraries

• The Visitor Pattern

Network and Web Libraries

• Socket-Level Access
• Higher-Level Access
• CGI Development
• HTML Output Methods
• Multipart Form Values

Microsoft Windows Support

Embedded Documentation

• Inline Formatting
• Cross References
• Method Names
• Including Other Files
• Using rdtool
• Mandatory Disclaimer

Interactive Ruby Shell

• Command Line
• Initialization File
• Commands
• Configuring the Prompt
• Restrictions
• rtags, xmp, and the Frame Class
• rtags
• xmp
• The Frame Class

Support

• Web Sites
• Download Sites
• Usenet Newsgroup
• Mailing Lists
• Bug Reporting

Ruby Programming
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