Downloading and Installing Ruby on Symbian

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Created: hamishwillee (10 May 2011)

Last edited: hamishwillee (17 Jul 2012)

	Getting Started with Ruby  > Download and Install > Hello World > Ruby Quick Start

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This article shows how to set up a Ruby on Symbian development environment. It explains how to get and install the needed files and how to set up your mobile device for testing.

Ruby development environment

Ruby scripts are simply text files containing code written in the Ruby programming language and named with the file extension ".rb". The scripts can be written in any text editor on any host operating system and can be run from within the "Ruby Front end" interactive GUI environment on your mobile device.

While any text editor may be used, we recommend Notepad ++ for its awareness of Ruby syntax. You can also use one of the myriad of Ruby IDEs (Netbeans, Aptana Radrails, RubyMine, to name just a few); Note however that while you'll be able to code in your preferred operating system, you won't be able to interactively debug a script running on the phone.

Set up your device

Note: Ruby on Symbian is dependent on some of the standard C compatibility library: pips_nokia_x_x_SS.sis (and stdioserver_s60_x_x_SS.SIS if you want to direct output to standard IO)
These are present on Symbian platform devices, but may not be present on S60 devices; they should be installed prior to installing Ruby. We suggest you install all of Open C and Open C++ SIS files from the Open C/C++ Plug-ins. The plugin README.txt explains the location of the files that must be installed to the phone

The latest Symbian Ruby binaries, packaged as native installation files (.sisx), can be downloaded from the Files section of http://rubyforge.org/projects/symbian/:

• symbian-ruby.1.9.2.0.zip (latest version at time of writing)

Unzip the file and install the following files to your phone (following the instructions in How to get an app to the phone)

• ruby.sisx - Ruby runtime
• ruby_core_ext.sisx - natively implemented core functions
• ruby_ecam.sisx - extension to provide access to the camera
• ruby_eloc.sisx - extension to provide access to the current locale
• ruby_etel.sisx - extension to provide access to basic telephony functionality
• RubyFrontend.sisx - Shell for running scripts in

Standard Ruby libraries can be copied manually from any PC Ruby distribution to \Data\Ruby\Lib folder (default library search path) in the internal phone memory or on the memory card.

At this point you can put Ruby scripts on the phone and run them easily with the basic GUI interactive shell (that you installed with RubyFrontend.sisx). This shell also redirects all standard I/O streams to its main window, so it is not necessary to install any additional P.I.P.S. components to support STDIO console functionality. The shell application can be found in the "Applications" (or equivalent) folder on your device, and is obvious as it has the "Ruby" icon. A bit more information on this process is provided in the Ruby Hello World Tutorial

Set up the Emulator

The Windows-hosted Symbian Emulator is not supported due to ongoing migration to Platform Simulator able to run native ARM binary code.

Further information

The core Ruby documentation and many useful tutorials are available from the RubyForge documentation page.

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	Getting Started with Ruby  > Download and Install > Hello World > Ruby Quick Start

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