[Tutorial] SketchUp Ruby C Extension

Dan Rathbun

There's another thread around here that talks about Dana's repository.

This one?
http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=180&t=38689&p=415237#p415237

designingcrime

I tried to compile Dana's library as well, but since the GiHub project doesn't include the CURL files it failed. And none of the packages I found at the CURL sitecontained the linked files. I asked Dana for which package he used, but it doesn't seem he found it again.

There's another thread around here that talks about Dana's repository.

Need to find out what CURL files are required.

GitHub - danawoodman/google-sketchup-file-downloader: [NOT MAINTAINED] A generic and reusable SketchUp Ruby C extension file downloading utility to be used within SketchUp plugins.

[NOT MAINTAINED] A generic and reusable SketchUp Ruby C extension file downloading utility to be used within SketchUp plugins. - danawoodman/google-sketchup-file-downloader

GitHub (github.com)

I had no problem building Dana's library on OS X. Like he said curl ships with OS X so it should be on your system, I think you can check by typing which curl in the Terminal. For some reason if its not there I recommend just downloading from macports and making sure its location is in your System PATH.

Dana's library currently has some inconsistencies about the name of the extension and class its building which creates some problems, in some places it is called file_downloader and in others its called fileDownloader. Change all references to file_downloader to fileDownloader. and run ruby extonf.rb then make.(ignore cmake, because his CMakeList.txt file isn't setup to link libcurl) You will notice a line in extconf.rb

Make sure the cURL library is installed.

have_library("curl")

this basically makes sure that when you compile, curl can be found and linked. When running extconf.rb if you see a line like this
checking for curl... yes
this means you will be good to go when you run make

after building you can check and make sure libcurl is linked to your extension by typing in
otool -L fileDownloader.bundle

designingcrime

@ishboo said:

Hey y'all,

I have not tried compiling on windows since I own a mac. On Mac libcurl is installed system wide so it is more straightforward setting it up.

One thing that may work is trying to install libcurl using Cygwin and then trying to compile it in Cygwin as well.

I have a coworker who runs windows, so I'll have him an I check it out next week and see what we can find out!

Dana, that would be great if you could ask around. As soon as I get this cross compiled, I will clean all the code up, package it nicely and send you a pull request. btw, I also added upload and basic authentication functionality to the utility as well. My head is kinda spinning around with all the different compilers on windows. I'll spend a day looking into Cygwin soon.

thomthom

Did you look at the Hello World example I posted at BitBucket for compiling on Windows and OSX PPC/Intel?

designingcrime

@thomthom said:

Did you look at the Hello World example I posted at BitBucket for compiling on Windows and OSX PPC/Intel?

Yeah I can get that to compile fine. Where run into problems is linking curllib (or in general linking a c library in wndows) which Is not an issue with your Hello World Example since it doesn't reference any 3rd party libraries

thomthom

I'd be very interested in hearing how you get on with it and any description/mini-tutorial if you would care to do one. I'm very fresh to C so I'd love to learn this.

ishboo

I talked to my colleague and we're gonna try to hack on it this Saturday at our weekly hackathon. Will update if we get around to it.

Dan Rathbun

As as I mentioned before.. there are already Ruby bindings.

Curb looks like the most recent, it was last updated June 29, 2012:
http://rubygems.org/gems/curb

Dan Rathbun

Stay away from Cygwin.

If you cannot use MSVS.. at least use MingGW.

Here's the link to download the source (which comes with precompiled binaries for curl.exe)
http://curl.haxx.se/gknw.net/7.26.0/dist-w32/curl-7.26.0-devel-mingw32.zip

OR.. if you just simply want the precompiled binaries (without source):
http://curl.haxx.se/gknw.net/7.26.0/dist-w32/curl-7.26.0-rtmp-ssh2-ssl-sspi-zlib-idn-static-bin-w32.zip
Has both pre-compiled curl.exe and libcurl.dll, as well as a few more dll files.

And how to build on various platforms:
http://curl.haxx.se/docs/install.html

ishboo

Thanks for the links Dan

@dan rathbun said:

As as I mentioned before.. there are already Ruby bindings.

Curb looks like the most recent, it was last updated June 29, 2012:
http://rubygems.org/gems/curb

I would assume this would mean the end user would need to install the gem for it to work?

thomthom

@ishboo said:

I talked to my colleague and we're gonna try to hack on it this Saturday at our weekly hackathon. Will update if we get around to it.

thomthom

@dan rathbun said:

Stay away from Cygwin.

If you cannot use MSVS.. at least use MingGW.

Why is this?

Dan Rathbun

@ishboo said:

Thanks for the links Dan

@dan rathbun said:

As as I mentioned before.. there are already Ruby bindings.

Curb looks like the most recent, it was last updated June 29, 2012:
http://rubygems.org/gems/curb

I would assume this would mean the end user would need to install the gem for it to work?

Well, no... gems do not work with Sketchup embedded Ruby.

Actually want is probably needed is to look at the handfull of gems and write a Sketchup friendly "clone".

Dan Rathbun

@thomthom said:

@dan rathbun said:

Stay away from Cygwin.

If you cannot use MSVS.. at least use MingGW.

Why is this?

My advice. (From what I have read.)

If you want expert advice, ask Luis Lavena over at the Ruby Installer project forum.

Dan Rathbun

On this subject:

Redirecting to Google Groups

(groups.google.com)

designingcrime

Hey guys, so I finally got a Ruby C extension to compile on both os x and windows and link curllib. I got a lot of help from Luis at the RubyInstaller group and ended up using RubyInstaller and DevKit to link curl and build using the gcc compiler included with devkit.
Here is the extension. Its a modified version of Dana's sketchup downloader, but also included uploading, basic http authentication and ssl certificate checking(all through curl). I provided instructions on how to build on both os x and windows.

https://github.com/sunglass/SunglassPlugins/tree/master/SG-SketchupHook/src/Connection%20Manager

Thanks for all your help guys.

Dana - Lets get your Sketchup downloader plugin working.

thomthom

@designingcrime said:

Hey guys, so I finally got a Ruby C extension to compile on both os x and windows and link curllib. I got a lot of help from Luis at the RubyInstaller group and ended up using RubyInstaller and DevKit to link curl and build using the gcc compiler included with devkit.
Here is the extension. Its a modified version of Dana's sketchup downloader, but also included uploading, basic http authentication and ssl certificate checking(all through curl). I provided instructions on how to build on both os x and windows.

https://github.com/sunglass/SunglassPlugins/tree/master/SG-SketchupHook/src/Connection%20Manager

Thanks for all your help guys.

Dana - Lets get your Sketchup downloader plugin working.

 :heart_eyes:

ishboo

That's awesome news! Congrats!

I'll have a look at it soon and try to finish up the tool

Anton_S

Lets, say I compile a HelloWorldEx on windows7, will it be the same as compiling it on XP?

Dan Rathbun

I would think it would depend upon which MSVC runtime you use.

Which ever you use, the user(s) will need to have that version installed on their machine(s), regardless of whether they are running Win5.1 (XP,) Win6.0 (Vista) or Win6.1 (Win7.)

SketchUp itself lists MSVC ver 8.x (2005) as a dependent assembly in it's manifest.

There ARE some programmers that have compiled extensions and linked to ver 10 (2010), but they must give the Microsoft download link to install that runtime version, and list it as a dependancy.

Reference:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_C++