Ruby 1.8.0 and Mac OS X and Tcl/Tk 8.4 Aqua (not!)

[Mike Hall]

My trials with Ruby and Tcl/Tk on Mac OS X

Ruby is 1.8.0 preview 7
Tcl/Tk 8.4 is the recent TclTk-Aqua build for that native OSX Aqua look
Mac OS X is 10.2.3

(1) 'configure' wasn't finding Tcl/Tk, so I hacked up an OSX-only version
of ext/tcltklib/extconf.rb with hard-coded parameters
(which might be OK because of the frameworks)

=========
# extconf.rb for tcltklib
# HACKED for Mac OS X !!!

require 'mkmf'

if RUBY_PLATFORM !~ /mswin32|mingw|cygwin|bccwin32/
have_library("nsl", "t_open")
have_library("socket", "socket")
have_library("dl", "dlopen")
have_library("m", "log")
end

# these are left-over; they mean nothing
dir_config("tk")
dir_config("tcl")
dir_config("X11")

tklib = with_config("tklib")
tcllib = with_config("tcllib")
stubs = enable_config("tcltk_stubs") || with_config("tcltk_stubs")

stubs = true # force it

$CPPFLAGS += ' -DUSE_TCL_STUBS -DUSE_TK_STUBS' if stubs
$CPPFLAGS += ' -D_WIN32' if /cygwin/ =~ RUBY_PLATFORM

# these two are needed because #include <tcl.h> isn't "framework" friendly
$CPPFLAGS += ' -I/Library/Frameworks/Tcl.framework/Headers'
$CPPFLAGS += ' -I/Library/Frameworks/Tk.framework/Headers'

# tell the compiler where the libraries are
$CPPFLAGS += ' -framework Tcl -framework Tk'

# let the linker know where the libraries are
$LDFLAGS += ' -framework Tcl -framework Tk'

create_makefile("tcltklib")
=========

You should be thoroughly disgusted with that. However, I was getting
tired of running the following, and didn't know how to get the top-level
'make' to add all those options when it configured the extension.
Would those options really get carried from the top-level "./configure"
all the way down to the extension?

ruby extconf.rb \
--with-tcl-include=/Library/Frameworks/Tcl.framework/Headers \
--with-tk-include=/Library/Frameworks/Tk.framework/Headers \
--with-tcl-lib=/Library/Frameworks/Tcl.framework/Tcl \
--with-tk-lib=/Library/Frameworks/Tk.framework/Tk \
--enable-tcltk_stubs --enable-tk_stubs

(2) Now, the extension gets configured and compiles OK.
Run-time is something else.

/usr/lib/ruby/1.6/tk.rb:7:in `require': tcltklib: tcltk_stubs init error(-1) (LoadError)

Debug printfs revealed that the stubs interface was looking for
a library of 'libtcl8.4.bundle'. That's no-good for several reasons:
- the Tcl and Tk libraries do not have a 'bundle' extension (DLEXT)
- their names are much different than that

I worked around this mismatch by defining two environment variables,
thanks to the clear foresight of the author of 'stubs.c'!

export RUBY_TCL_DLL=/Library/Frameworks/Tcl.framework/Tcl
export RUBY_TK_DLL=/Library/Frameworks/Tk.framework/Tk

(3) Now, when loading the 'tcltklib' extension, there was a new error:

/usr/lib/ruby/1.6/tk.rb:7:in `require': tcltklib: tcltk_stubs init error(-2) (LoadError)

The code showed that it couldn't find 'Tcl_CreateInterp'.
After digging around 'dln.c' and the 'dl' library, I noticed a
routine called 'dlsym_auto_underscore'. In the '#define' for DLSYM
I used it instead of 'dlsym'. It seems to work, since the extension
now loads without complaint.

(4) So, I run 'demo/lines1.rb', and a big window comes up, with the
translucent blue button in the Aqua style that says 'Draw'. Looks good,
but there are a few problems:

- every click in the window gives: "SetFrontProcess failed, -606"
- the window cannot be dragged
- the window cannot be closed, neither from the title bar,
nor with a ^ or ^\ from the shell (a 'kill' from another window
works OK, though)

(5) According to some Apple documents, the correct macros to detect
Mac OS X are both __DARWIN__ and __APPLE__. In some places (dln.c)
I see NeXT and __APPLE__, or else it assumes OPENSTEP. I doubt that's
a problem, but it had me looking cross-eyed at it for a long time! :-)

FWIW, the top-level 'configure' generates: HAVE_LIBDL, HAVE_DLOPEN,
and a DLEXT of ".bundle"

So, I hope all this rambling will help someone else figure out what's going on.

[Mark Wilson]

On Saturday, August 2, 2003, at 03:21 PM, Mike Hall wrote:

>
> My trials with Ruby and Tcl/Tk on Mac OS X
> [snip]

Only once was I able to get tcltk working on Mac OS X and,
unfortunately, I did not document how I did it and have never been able
to repeat it (I have learned from that mistake :-( . I do hope that
someone, somewhere, can figure this out, document what they did and
share it with others.

Regards,

Mark

[Hidetoshi NAGAI]

Hi,

From: Mike Hall <mghall@enteract.com>
Subject: Ruby 1.8.0 and Mac OS X and Tcl/Tk 8.4 Aqua (not!)
Date: Sun, 3 Aug 2003 04:21:58 +0900
Message-ID: <bgh2ev$h8m$2@bob.news.rcn.net>

> My trials with Ruby and Tcl/Tk on Mac OS X

(snip)

> (4) So, I run 'demo/lines1.rb', and a big window comes up, with the
> translucent blue button in the Aqua style that says 'Draw'. Looks good,
> but there are a few problems:
>
> - every click in the window gives: "SetFrontProcess failed, -606"
> - the window cannot be dragged
> - the window cannot be closed, neither from the title bar,
> nor with a ^ or ^\ from the shell (a 'kill' from another window
> works OK, though)

I read sources for MacOS X on Tcl/Tk8.4.4. But I couldn't understand
the reason of the trouble. Although I thought that the trouble is based
on the fail to treat events properly, I couldn't find the code which is
the reason of the trouble.
I have no chance to use MacOS X. So I cannot test to find the reason.
I have not enough time to fix the trouble before Ruby 1.8.0 release.
I'm sorry but I'll not modify sources on Ruby1.8.0-release.
--
Hidetoshi NAGAI (nagai@ai.kyutech.ac.jp)

[Chris Thomas]

> I read sources for MacOS X on Tcl/Tk8.4.4. But I couldn't understand

> the reason of the trouble. Although I thought that the trouble is based
> on the fail to treat events properly, I couldn't find the code which is
> the reason of the trouble.

Probably because you don't have access to that code. :) I went down
this path with RubyCocoa a while back. If I recall correctly, if you
want to handle UI events in Mac OS X, the executable must reside within
an application package/bundle. I filed a bug with Apple at the time,
but I don't know the current status (ie, whether or not this has
changed in Panther).

Chris

On Saturday, August 2, 2003, at 7:52 PM, Hidetoshi NAGAI wrote:

> Hi,
>
> From: Mike Hall <mghall@enteract.com>
> Subject: Ruby 1.8.0 and Mac OS X and Tcl/Tk 8.4 Aqua (not!)
> Date: Sun, 3 Aug 2003 04:21:58 +0900
> Message-ID: <bgh2ev$h8m$2@bob.news.rcn.net>

>> My trials with Ruby and Tcl/Tk on Mac OS X

> (snip)

>> (4) So, I run 'demo/lines1.rb', and a big window comes up, with the
>> translucent blue button in the Aqua style that says 'Draw'.
>> Looks good,
>> but there are a few problems:
>>
>> - every click in the window gives: "SetFrontProcess failed,
>> -606"
>> - the window cannot be dragged
>> - the window cannot be closed, neither from the title bar,
>> nor with a ^ or ^\ from the shell (a 'kill' from another
>> window
>> works OK, though)

>
> I read sources for MacOS X on Tcl/Tk8.4.4. But I couldn't understand
> the reason of the trouble. Although I thought that the trouble is based
> on the fail to treat events properly, I couldn't find the code which is
> the reason of the trouble.
> I have no chance to use MacOS X. So I cannot test to find the reason.
> I have not enough time to fix the trouble before Ruby 1.8.0 release.
> I'm sorry but I'll not modify sources on Ruby1.8.0-release.
> --
> Hidetoshi NAGAI
> (nagai@ai.kyutech.ac.jp)
>

[Mark Wilson]

On Saturday, August 2, 2003, at 10:52 PM, Hidetoshi NAGAI wrote:

> [snip]
> I'm sorry but I'll not modify sources on Ruby1.8.0-release.

I think that once the problem is solved, it can be released as a shim
prior to the release of 1.8.1. For your information, here is a link to
a page describing how Python gets Tkinter to work on Mac OS X:

[url]http://tony.lownds.com/macosx/tkinter.html[/url]

I would be happy to help with this effort. My abilities are very
limited in this area, but I can test possible solutions and report the
results.

Regards,

Mark