This is part 3 of my little adventures in Ruby C extension land.

If you haven't read part 1 and 2, you might want to go back there.

JustDoIt Alley

So this was the path I chose. Maybe not the wisest choice, but most certainly the a wild ride.

The first thing I wondered when walking down the dark, moonlit alley was where to even begin with putting my C files. I had vaguely heard of the ominous ext directory, but nothing specific about the directory structure.

Nor did I know if my Ruby files would have to move as well and whether or not I needed some special setup to make the gems work.

So I was pretty lost. And that after only walking 5 steps. But that's what JustDoIt Alley is: one big maze.

Structure Emerging from Chaos

After reviewing my steady companion (the broad band internet access, remember?), I came up with some answers:

1. There really is a ext directory
2. That's where your C files go
3. Your Ruby stuff stays put
4. There is a magic file you need to create in order to make things work: extconf.rb

But let me clarify:

ext

You will be hosting all your C code here. But beware: for each .so/.dll file you want to create you must have a separate sub-directory. So if you want to have cranberry.so, create ext/cranberry and put all your C code there.

extconf.rb

This is the high priest of Ruby C. It knows all and it rules all, yet it is simple and humble -- sort of like a buddhist monk.

It's the gate-keeper for the compilation process since it's used to create the Makefile. (If you don't know what a Makefile is: It's a configuration file for make)

Writing extconfs can be both: easy and terribly complicated. There is limited documentation on the subject available online.

(NOTE: You could also use mkrf, which will generate Rakefiles instead of Makefiles)

If you want complicated: Read the documentation. But most of the time, easy will totally suffice, so here is all you need to put in your extconf.rb:

require 'mkmf'

extension_name = 'cranberry'
dir_config(extension_name)
create_makefile(extension_name)

Just replace the cranberry with the juicy name you gave the ext directory above.

And that's it! Well -- at least for extconf. Now while you contemplate on my brilliant metaphor of the buddhist monk, I'll prepare the next part of this fantastic story.

Continue with Part 4!