[Kde-bindings] Packaging and distributing QtRuby applications

[Ahmad Amireh]

Hello,

I have built a QtRuby application, and I've been trying to "release" it for
a few days. My requirements target Windows + Mac OS X primarily, and Linux
too preferably. My users can not be required to download or install any
extra dependencies for the application, so it _MUST_ be self-contained, ie,
a binary, a bundle, a package, you name it.

I have searched and read everything I could come across that relates to this
process, and here's what I've tried:


   1. Crate @ http://github.com/copiousfreetime/crate
   I tried to adapt the 1 example I found throughout the whole internet to
   my needs, but I failed. The author's example is very basic, it covers
   bundling a simple SSL/authentication script, and by simple I mean it
   requires few to none dependencies (ruby gems, or static libraries as Qt is
   in my case).

   2. Ocra @ http://ocra.rubyforge.org/
   Ocra targets Windows only, it does not meet my requirements, thus I
   skipped it.

   3. tar2rubyscript & rubyscript2exe by Erik Veen @
   http://www.erikveen.dds.nl/tar2rubyscript/
   Ok this one looked like a candidate, and I spent most of my time trying
   to make it work, it almost did, but not really; I will include a more
   descriptive explanation of the problems I came across using rubyscript2exe
   below.

In the first "step" of the RBA process, and that is tar2rubyscript, I
succeed. My application is bundled into an albeit huge 37mbytes .rb file,
and I can `ruby my_application.rb` and it runs OK. The problems lie in the
2nd stage, and that is converting that tar into an executable; here is my
console output:

kandie:~/Workspace/Experiments/Ruby/deployment$ rubyscript2exe.rb
Kaboomp3.rb
Tracing Kaboomp3 ...
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
+                              kaBooMP3                             +
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
+ initializing Organizer
+ Organizer: ready to blow up!
+ initializing Qt
+ loading resource key: master from file: resources.rcc
+ mounting models
+ loading controllers
Gathering files...
/tmp/tar2rubyscript.d.46763.1/rubyscript2exe/require2lib.rb:60:in
`gatherlibs': undefined method `list' for Gem::Specification:Class
(NoMethodError)
        from /tmp/tar2rubyscript.d.46763.1/rubyscript2exe/require2lib.rb:30
/tmp/tar2rubyscript.d.46763.1/rubyscript2exe/require2lib.rb:151:in
`require2lib_load': can't convert Qt::File into String (TypeError)
        from
/tmp/tar2rubyscript.d.46763.1/rubyscript2exe/require2lib.rb:151:in
`load_without_new_constant_marking'
        from
/System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activesupport-2.3.5/lib/active_support/dependencies.rb:145:in
`load'
        from
/System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activesupport-2.3.5/lib/active_support/dependencies.rb:521:in
`new_constants_in'
        from
/System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activesupport-2.3.5/lib/active_support/dependencies.rb:145:in
`load'
        from
/tmp/tar2rubyscript.d.46764.1/Kaboomp3/lib/kaboomp3/utility.rb:57:in
`load_view'
        from /tmp/tar2rubyscript.d.46764.1/Kaboomp3/kaboomp3.rb:102:in
`setup'
        from /tmp/tar2rubyscript.d.46764.1/Kaboomp3/kaboomp3.rb:127:in
`initialize'
        from /tmp/tar2rubyscript.d.46764.1/Kaboomp3/kaboomp3.rb:34:in `new'
        from /tmp/tar2rubyscript.d.46764.1/Kaboomp3/kaboomp3.rb:34:in
`instance'
        from /tmp/tar2rubyscript.d.46764.1/Kaboomp3/kaboomp3.rb:139
        from /private/tmp/tar2rubyscript.d.46764.1/Kaboomp3/init.rb:2:in
`require'
        from /private/tmp/tar2rubyscript.d.46764.1/Kaboomp3/init.rb:2
        from
/tmp/tar2rubyscript.d.46763.1/rubyscript2exe/require2lib.rb:151:in
`require2lib_load'
        from
/tmp/tar2rubyscript.d.46763.1/rubyscript2exe/require2lib.rb:151:in `load'
        from Kaboomp3.rb:610
        from Kaboomp3.rb:559:in `newlocation'
        from Kaboomp3.rb:487:in `newlocation'
        from Kaboomp3.rb:454:in `newlocation'
        from Kaboomp3.rb:487:in `newlocation'
        from Kaboomp3.rb:559:in `newlocation'
        from Kaboomp3.rb:603
Couldn't execute this command (rc=256):
/System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/bin/ruby -r
'enumerator.so' -I '/tmp/tar2rubyscript.d.46763.1/rubyscript2exe' -I
'/tmp/tar2rubyscript.d.46763.1' -I '/Library/Ruby/Site/1.8' -I
'/Library/Ruby/Site/1.8/powerpc-darwin10.0' -I
'/Library/Ruby/Site/1.8/universal-darwin10.0' -I '/Library/Ruby/Site' -I
'/System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/lib/ruby/vendor_ruby/1.8'
-I
'/System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/lib/ruby/vendor_ruby/1.8/universal-darwin10.0'
-I
'/System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/lib/ruby/vendor_ruby'
-I '/System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/lib/ruby/1.8'
-I
'/System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/powerpc-darwin10.0'
-I
'/System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/universal-darwin10.0'
-I '.' -I '/Volumes/kandie/Workspace/Experiments/Ruby/deploy' -I
'/private/tmp/tar2rubyscript.d.46763.1/rubyscript2exe' -I
'/private/tmp/tar2rubyscript.d.46763.1/rubyscript2exe/lib' -I
'/private/tmp/tar2rubyscript.d.46763.1/rubyscript2exe' -I
'/private/tmp/tar2rubyscript.d.46763.1/rubyscript2exe/lib' -r
'/tmp/tar2rubyscript.d.46763.1/rubyscript2exe/require2lib.rb' 'Kaboomp3.rb'

Stopped.

I need to emphasize this line `can't convert Qt::File into String
(TypeError)` which is generated in my helper method `load_view` which code
is:

    def load_view(path, parent, loader)
      sheet = Qt::File.new(path)
      sheet.open(Qt::File::ReadOnly)
      view = loader.load(sheet, parent)
      sheet.close

      view
    end

loader is a Qt::UiLoader instance.

Ok, so things break on that line, `view = loader.load(sheet, parent)` and I
just can't tell why rubyscript2exe is trying to convert `sheet` which is a
Qt::File into a string. I can't see the correspondence. The things that I've
tried doing:


   - I thought there might be some name clash / conflict in my code.. so i
   renamed my load_view() method to something more specific, no use
   - I wondered if at some point rubyscript2exe was trying to do
   myQtFile.to_s to do whatever processing it might be doing, so I added a to_s
   method to Qt::File class, which returns the attribute fileName (the actual
   file path) that didn't work either
   - I removed that line altogether; I stopped loading views, et voila, it
   worked, but hey I've got no UI views now >.>

To add to my curiosity, what's up with that line that has to do with
active_record up there? AR is a dependency in my project, indeed, I'm using
it with Sqlite3, but it's not even remotely connected to the part where i
load my views...

I'm so confused and in dire need of help, as this is a school project which
deadline is due next week, and should I fail to meet it, I will fail the
course.

How can I package my application?

I thank you for reading through this and for your time.
-- 
There are 10 types of people, those who understand binary, and those who
don't.
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