nobu.nokada / softhome.net wrote:

>>Many thanks! Will the extension work with the VC++-Ruby, once it has 
>>been built for the MinGW Ruby?
> 
> Yes, for VC++ 6 and mingw.  VC++ 7 has changed its runtime DLL,
> but mingw hasn't supported it yet.

So not all DLLs are the same? That sounds like an awful situation :-( I 
was hoping that a DLL would be loadable by any other program.

I have been looking into Java Native Interface in the meantime, which is 
based on loading dlls. What I read about interfacing Ruby with C never 
mentioned DLLs, but somehow I assume it should work somewhat similiar? I 
hope it is possible to create a dll and use it from ruby, withouth the 
need of copying some 'extension' into the Ruby installation directory.

I haven't managed to get Java Native Interface to work yet, because I 
didn't know how to create DLLs with MinGW. In the meantime I found some 
instructions that make me feel hopeful, but I dindn't have time to try 
them yet. I hope from that I might get a better understanding of the 
Ruby interface, too, if not, I guess I'll do another project in Java and 
keep looking for another opportunity to use Ruby.

>>I haven't figured out how to install the MinGW Ruby yet. The binary 
>>distribution unzips into a Linux-like file structure. The ruby.exe seems 
>>to work, but not irb for example - so I guess it's not yet a real 
>>installation.
> 
> 
> There isn't irb.bat?

No - I suspect the MinGW Ruby is built for use with MinSYS, which I 
haven't tried yet? But I think it should be possible to create a 
MinGW-Ruby that is Windows only, too?