Archive for category macruby
Writing an open licensed book
Posted by Matt Aimonetti in Misc, macruby on May 9th, 2010
To celebrate last week’s release of MacRuby 0.6, O’Reilly and I started publishing the draft of my MacRuby book online: http://macruby.labs.oreilly.com/
I started thinking about working on “MacRuby: The Definitive Guide” last year when I realized that the project had a great future but there was a serious lack of documentation. With the support of the MacRuby team, I worked on a table of contents and a pitch. The next step was to decide what we wanted to do with the book.
I know a lot of technical book authors and most of them will tell you the same thing: if you think that you are going to make money writing a book, you are wrong. Even if your book sells well, because of the time invested in writing the book, you are probably better off doing consulting work and charging by the hour.
So since day one, I knew that this project would not make me rich. The goal was to share knowledge not to reimburse my mortgage or save California from bankruptcy. While publishing a web book is great, distribution is quite limited, especially if you try to reach people outside of your network. That’s why I decided to start talking to a few publishers. Most publishers I talked to were interested in working on the book, however they were not really keen on publishing a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative licensed book.
Let me explain why I think releasing technical books under a CC license is important. As you might know (or have figured out by now), I am not a native English speaker. I actually learned my first English words thanks to the computer my dad had at home. The problem when you don’t live in an English speaking country and you want to learn about the cutting edge technology is that you have to understand English. Thanks to the Internet, learning and practicing English is now much easier that it used to be. However, if you want to have access to books, most of the time you have to wait until someone translates the book and publishes it in your country or you have to manage to get an English version delivered to your country. This is often a pain because of national credit card limitations, international delivery restrictions etc… If you manage to find a way to get a copy, the book ends up costing a lot of money.
What does that mean in practice? Most of the technical books are first available in the English speaking western world, then slowly translated and/or distributed around the world. By the time you get a legal copy in Bolivia, Algeria or Vietnam, a new edition is probably out in the US probably because the technology evolved. Maybe that explains some of the book piracy worldwide?
Think about it for a minute: knowledge is power and time is money. And what do we do? We delay knowledge distribution. This is why I am a big fan of the Khan Academy and its awesome free online courses.
Turns out O’Reilly shares my vision and has already published a lot of books under various open licenses: http://oreilly.com/openbook/ I was also interested in publishing the content of my book ASAP so people could access it right away even though there would be lots of typos and missing content. This is also something O’Reilly has already done with the CouchDB and the Scala books.
Talking with Jan Lehnardt about his experience working with O’Reilly on the ‘CouchDB: The definitive guide’ book, I realized that we seem to have some shared interests. I contacted Jan’s editor and we decided to start working on the MacRuby book. The book will be available later on in all the usual commercial formats and I hope people will show their support so O’Reilly will be encouraged in their choice to continue publishing CC licensed book. At the end of the day, purchasing a CC licensed book helps supporting the authors, the publishers but also all the people who can’t have access to the latest technical books.
Finally, working on a book is not an easy thing, especially when you have to write it in a language that’s not yours. But I have to say that the community support has been amazing. Even John Gruber sent a fireball my way. And since the announcement was made, I have received a lot of comments, tweets, emails etc… It is very encouraging and it gives me the motivation needed to work on the book after a long work day.
Undo/Redo in MacRuby
Posted by Matt Aimonetti in macruby on February 2nd, 2010
As I’m working on my upcoming O’Reilly MacRuby book, I’m writing quite a lot of example code. I have spent the last few weeks digging through most of the Foundation framework classes to hopefully make Cocoa more accessible to Ruby developers.
In some instances things might look quite weird to someone new to Cocoa in some cases, things seem almost too easy. Here is an example implementing a undo/redo functionality using Foundations’ NSUndoManager.
framework 'Foundation' class Player attr_accessor :x, :y def initialize @x = @y = 0 end def undo_manager @manager ||= NSUndoManager.alloc.init end def left undo_manager.prepareWithInvocationTarget(self).right @x -= 1 end def right undo_manager.prepareWithInvocationTarget(self).left @x += 1 end end
Which you can use as such:
>> lara = Player.new => <Player:0x200267c80 @y=0 @x=0> >> lara.undo_manager.canUndo => false # normal since we did not do anything yet >> lara.left => -1 >> lara.x # -1 => -1 >> lara.undo_manager.canUndo => true # now we can undo, so let's try >> lara.undo_manager.undo # undo back to initial position => #<NSUndoManager:0x200257560> >> lara.x => 0 >> lara.undo_manager.canUndo => false # we can't anymore which makes sense >> lara.undo_manager.canRedo => true # however we can redo what we just undone >> lara.undo_manager.redo # redo to before we called undo => #<NSUndoManager:0x200257560> >> lara.x => -1
The above example was tested in macirb but as you can see, actions can be undone and redone very very easily. This is just a quick preview of what you can do using Ruby + Cocoa and hopefully it will give you some cool ideas to implement.
MacRuby 0.5 final is out
Posted by Matt Aimonetti in macruby on January 31st, 2010
After going through two betas, MacRuby 0.5 final is now released and can be downloaded by clicking on the icon below:
Don’t worry about having MacRuby and Ruby 1.8.x or 1.9 installed, MacRuby is namespaced and won’t affect your current Ruby installations, just download and launch the installer. (Note: The build was compiled for SnowLeopard only)
You can read all the details of the release on the MacRuby website.
So what changed since 0.4? Too many things for me to list them here but basically 0.5 uses LLVM to compile code and make MacRuby faster and integrate better with the Obj-c runtime. However since the last beta, here is what changed:
- HotCocoa is now a separate gem
- improved AOT compilation
- Grand Central Dispatch support – use all your cores without the pain of threads. Read this post for more info.
0.5 is a solid release which I consider production ready, I personally wrote a few of small Cocoa apps in MacRuby and everything has been working very well. Of course, I’m also excited about the new stuff in 0.6 trunk like the debugger previewed a few weeks ago: http://merbist.com/2010/01/18/how-to-detect-cylons-with-macruby/ but also some drastic changes in the primitive classes that I might cover later on.
Finally, people are asking if the iPad will be able to run apps running in MacRuby. Unfortunately, the current answer is: no. The two issues with the IPhone/iP*d OS are the lack of Garbage Collector and support for BridgeSupport (needed to define CocoaTouch constants available from MacRuby). However, this matter is being discussed on the mailing list and progress is made by contributors (the core team primarily focusing on the desktop).
That is going to be an exciting Ruby week as MacRuby 0.5 is now out and Rails 3 beta/RC0 is expected really soon.
How to detect Cylons with MacRuby
Posted by Matt Aimonetti in macruby on January 18th, 2010
Over the weekend, MacRuby’s trunk became version 0.6 and the bug fixing is currently done in both the 0.5 branch and trunk. Based on MacRuby’s usual release cycle I would expect a 0.5 beta3 or 0.5 final to be released soon so most of the work can be focused on trunk.
I’ll let you check on the TODO list to see what was done in 0.5 and what is in the plan for 0.6.
However, there is one feature in 0.6 that I know lots of you will just love! The good news is that Laurent already committed a very early version of his work so I figured, I should share the good news with you:
Introducing MacRuby’s debugger!
If you were expecting to read: “a Cylon detector!”, keep on reading.
Again, this feature is in really early development since it’s scheduled for 0.6 and 0.5 final is not out yet. But if you install MacRuby using the nightly builds or build from trunk, you can already play with the debugger.
Let me give you a really quick tour of the debugger.
Let’s imagine that we were given the task to debug the cylon detector written by Gaius Baltar which looks like that:
characters = %w{Adama Apollo Baltar Roslin StarBuck Six} def cylon?(character) false end characters.each do |character| if cylon?(character) puts "#{character} is a Cylon!" else puts "#{character} is not a cylon." end end
Here is what happens when I execute the script:
$ macruby cylon_detector.rb Adama is not a cylon. Apollo is not a cylon. Baltar is not a cylon. Roslin is not a cylon. StarBuck is not a cylon. Six is not a cylon.
The only problem is that we all know that Six is a Cylon, the detector isn’t working right so let’s debug it:
$ macrubyd cylon_detector.rb
Starting program.
cylon_detector.rb:1> b cylon_detector.rb:8 if character == 'Six'
Added breakpoint 1.
cylon_detector.rb:1> c
Adama is not a cylon.
Apollo is not a cylon.
Baltar is not a cylon.
Roslin is not a cylon.
StarBuck is not a cylon.
cylon_detector.rb:8> p cylon?(character)
=> false
cylon_detector.rb:8> p "This detector is broken!"
=> "This detector is broken!"
cylon_detector.rb:8> p def cylon?(character); character == 'Six'; end
=> nil
cylon_detector.rb:8> p cylon?(character)
=> true
cylon_detector.rb:8> p cylon?('Matt')
=> false
cylon_detector.rb:8> c
Six is a Cylon!
Program exited.The first thing we do is to add a conditional breakpoint:
b cylon_detector.rb:8 if character == 'Six'
Basically, the debugger will add a breakpoint at line 8 which will only be active when the value of ‘character’ is equal to ‘Six’.
Now that the breakpoint added, we can continue the program execution and just wait until we reach the defined condition.
cylon_detector.rb:1> c
Once we reach the breakpoint, we evaluate the result of “cylon?(character)” by using the p command. We see that the result is “false” when we know for sure that it should be true since the value of the character variable is ‘Six’ and she is a cylon. At this point, you might have guessed that somewhat acted as a cylon agent and I pretended to fix the problem by overwriting the “cylon?” method:
cylon_detector.rb:8> p def cylon?(character); character == 'Six'; end
Now that the method is overwritten, I can check that Six is recognized as being a cylon:
cylon_detector.rb:8> p cylon?(character) => true
and also check that I am not detected a cylon:
cylon_detector.rb:8> p cylon?('Matt')
=> falseI can now continue the execution of the program and see that Six is detected as a Cylon!
Of course this is just a very early version of the debugger and we will see lots of improvement in the next few weeks. Who knows someone might even create a GUI for the debugger and/or a Xcode integration.
Anyway, the point being that MacRuby developers should expect a lot of awesome stuff coming up their way soon. (also be careful about the skin jobs around you, cylon detectors can’t be trusted!)
Controlling iTunes with MacRuby
Posted by Matt Aimonetti in macruby on January 17th, 2010
Since Mac OS X v10.5, Apple added a technology called Scripting Bridge which allows to control and communicate with scriptable applications such as Mail, iChat or iTunes.
A few weeks back, I showed how to control iChat with MacRuby. This time I’m going to show you how to control iTunes.
Here is a small script that I wrote to wake me up in music every morning.
#!/usr/local/bin/macruby framework 'Foundation' framework 'ScriptingBridge' itunes = SBApplication.applicationWithBundleIdentifier("com.apple.itunes") load_bridge_support_file 'iTunes.bridgesupport' itunes.run class SBElementArray def [](value) self.objectWithName(value) end end itunes.stop playlist = itunes.sources["Library"].userPlaylists["morning"] playlist.playOnce(false) if playlist
The idea is that I have a Mac Mini streaming music through speakers connected to an AirportExpress in my bedroom.
Let’s go through the script quickly.
We start by loading two frameworks, Foundation and ScriptingBridge.
Now that we have ScriptingBridge loaded, we can control iTunes. To do that, we use:
SBApplication.applicationWithBundleIdentifier(“com.apple.itunes”)
We then load a bridgesupport file that contains the enumerated constants from the iTunes scriptable dictionary.
We make sure iTunes is running by calling #run on the application object.
Before using iTune scriptable interface, we are making the API a bit nicer, it’s totally unnecessary but it makes our code look better.
itunes.sources returns an instance of SBElementArray which is not really an array nor a hash.
The rest of the code is pretty simple, we find the library, find the playlist called ‘morning’ and play it if found.
So you might wonder two things:
- What is the iTunes.bridgesupport file?
- How do you know what methods are available to control iTunes?
bridgesupport file
The bridgesupport file is important since it defines the required constants.
Apple provides a metadata generator called gen_bridge_metadata which generates a bridgesupport file.
Here is what the documentation says:
$ man gen_bridge_metadata
NAME gen_bridge_metadata -- Objective-C Bridges Metadata Generator SYNOPSIS gen_bridge_metadata [options...] headers... DESCRIPTION gen_bridge_metadata is a tool that generates bridging metadata information for a given framework or set of head- ers. The Objective-C bridges supported in Mac OS X, such as RubyCocoa (Ruby) and PyObjC (Python), read this information at runtime. Metadata files describe the parts of an Objective-C framework that the bridges cannot automatically handle. These are primarily the ANSI C elements of the framework -- functions, constants, enumerations, and so on -- but also include special cases such as functions or methods that accept pointer-like arguments. These special cases must be manually specified in separate files called exceptions. The gen_bridge_metadata tool can then read in the exceptions file when it generates the framework metadata. The file extension used for metadata files should be .bridgesupport. Certain elements, such as inline functions, cannot be described in the metadata files. It is therefore required to generate a dynamic library in order to make the bridges use them. The gen_bridge_metadata tool can take care of that for you. The file extension for the dynamic libraries should be .dylib. You should install metadata files in one of three filesystem locations. For example, for a framework named MyFramework that is installed as /Library/Frameworks/MyFramework.framework, you can install the MyFramework.bridgesupport and MyFramework.dylib files in one of the following possible locations, in order of priority: o /Library/Frameworks/MyFramework/Resources/BridgeSupport o /Library/BridgeSupport o ~/Library/BridgeSupport
The problem is that we don’t have a framework or header file to generate a bridgesupport file for.
So, what we need a header file for iTunes, turns out we have a tool to do that:
$ sdef /Applications/iTunes.app | sdp -fh --basename iTunes
I won’t go in the details of what sdef and sdp do, just check their manual page.
Running the command above will create a iTunes.h which we can use to create a bridgesupport file.
Here is the generated header file: http://gist.github.com/279657
Now, let’s create a bidgesupport file:
$ gen_bridge_metadata -c '-I.' iTunes.h > iTunes.bridgesupport
An that’s how we get the bridgesupport file. (see file: http://gist.github.com/279698)
iTunes Documentation
The easiest way to understand what’s available to you is to open iTunes’ dictionary in the AppleScript Editor.
Otherwise you can study the iTunes.h file.
I wrote a very dumb parser to give you an idea of the methods and properties available when controlling iTunes via ScriptingBridge, here is the output:
Class: iTunesPrintSettings Properties: copies (the number of copies of a document to be printed) collating (Should printed copies be collated?) startingPage (the first page of the document to be printed) endingPage (the last page of the document to be printed) pagesAcross (number of logical pages laid across a physical page) pagesDown (number of logical pages laid out down a physical page) errorHandling (how errors are handled) requestedPrintTime (the time at which the desktop printer should print the document) printerFeatures (printer specific options) faxNumber (for fax number) targetPrinter (for target printer) Method: printPrintDialog:(BOOL)printDialog withProperties:(iTunesPrintSettings *)withProperties kind:(iTunesEKnd)kind theme:(NSString *)theme Returned: void Print the specified object(s) ---- Method: close Returned: void Close an object ---- Method: delete Returned: void Delete an element from an object ---- Method: duplicateTo:(SBObject *)to Returned: SBObject Duplicate one or more object(s) ---- Method: exists Returned: BOOL Verify if an object exists ---- Method: open Returned: void open the specified object(s) ---- Method: playOnce:(BOOL)once Returned: void play the current track or the specified track or file. ---- Class: iTunesApplication Properties: currentEncoder (the currently selected encoder (MP3, AIFF, WAV, etc.)) currentEQPreset (the currently selected equalizer preset) currentPlaylist (the playlist containing the currently targeted track) currentStreamTitle (the name of the current song in the playing stream (provided by streaming server)) currentStreamURL (the URL of the playing stream or streaming web site (provided by streaming server)) currentTrack (the current targeted track) currentVisual (the currently selected visual plug-in) EQEnabled (is the equalizer enabled?) fixedIndexing (true if all AppleScript track indices should be independent of the play order of the owning playlist.) frontmost (is iTunes the frontmost application?) fullScreen (are visuals displayed using the entire screen?) name (the name of the application) mute (has the sound output been muted?) playerPosition (the player’s position within the currently playing track in seconds.) playerState (is iTunes stopped, paused, or playing?) selection (the selection visible to the user) soundVolume (the sound output volume (0 = minimum, 100 = maximum)) version (the version of iTunes) visualsEnabled (are visuals currently being displayed?) visualSize (the size of the displayed visual) Method: browserWindows Returned: SBElementArray ---- Method: encoders Returned: SBElementArray ---- Method: EQPresets Returned: SBElementArray ---- Method: EQWindows Returned: SBElementArray ---- Method: playlistWindows Returned: SBElementArray ---- Method: sources Returned: SBElementArray ---- Method: visuals Returned: SBElementArray ---- Method: windows Returned: SBElementArray ---- Method: printPrintDialog:(BOOL)printDialog withProperties:(iTunesPrintSettings *)withProperties kind:(iTunesEKnd)kind theme:(NSString *)theme Returned: void Print the specified object(s) ---- Method: run Returned: void run iTunes ---- Method: quit Returned: void quit iTunes ---- Method: add:(NSArray *)x to:(SBObject *)to Returned: iTunesTrack add one or more files to a playlist ---- Method: backTrack Returned: void reposition to beginning of current track or go to previous track if already at start of current track ---- Method: convert:(NSArray *)x Returned: iTunesTrack convert one or more files or tracks ---- Method: fastForward Returned: void skip forward in a playing track ---- Method: nextTrack Returned: void advance to the next track in the current playlist ---- Method: pause Returned: void pause playback ---- Method: playOnce:(BOOL)once Returned: void play the current track or the specified track or file. ---- Method: playpause Returned: void toggle the playing/paused state of the current track ---- Method: previousTrack Returned: void return to the previous track in the current playlist ---- Method: resume Returned: void disable fast forward/rewind and resume playback, if playing. ---- Method: rewind Returned: void skip backwards in a playing track ---- Method: stop Returned: void stop playback ---- Method: update Returned: void update the specified iPod ---- Method: eject Returned: void eject the specified iPod ---- Method: subscribe:(NSString *)x Returned: void subscribe to a podcast feed ---- Method: updateAllPodcasts Returned: void update all subscribed podcast feeds ---- Method: updatePodcast Returned: void update podcast feed ---- Method: openLocation:(NSString *)x Returned: void Opens a Music Store or audio stream URL ---- Class: iTunesItem Properties: container (the container of the item) index (The index of the item in internal application order.) name (the name of the item) persistentID (the id of the item as a hexidecimal string. This id does not change over time.) Method: id Returned: NSInteger the id of the item ---- Method: printPrintDialog:(BOOL)printDialog withProperties:(iTunesPrintSettings *)withProperties kind:(iTunesEKnd)kind theme:(NSString *)theme Returned: void Print the specified object(s) ---- Method: close Returned: void Close an object ---- Method: delete Returned: void Delete an element from an object ---- Method: duplicateTo:(SBObject *)to Returned: SBObject Duplicate one or more object(s) ---- Method: exists Returned: BOOL Verify if an object exists ---- Method: open Returned: void open the specified object(s) ---- Method: playOnce:(BOOL)once Returned: void play the current track or the specified track or file. ---- Method: reveal Returned: void reveal and select a track or playlist ---- Class: iTunesPlaylist Properties: duration (the total length of all songs (in seconds)) name (the name of the playlist) parent (folder which contains this playlist (if any)) shuffle (play the songs in this playlist in random order?) size (the total size of all songs (in bytes)) songRepeat (playback repeat mode) specialKind (special playlist kind) time (the length of all songs in MM:SS format) visible (is this playlist visible in the Source list?) Method: tracks Returned: SBElementArray ---- Method: moveTo:(SBObject *)to Returned: void Move playlist(s) to a new location ---- Method: searchFor:(NSString *)for_ only:(iTunesESrA)only Returned: iTunesTrack search a playlist for tracks matching the search string. Identical to entering search text in the Search field in iTunes. ---- Class: iTunesAudioCDPlaylist Properties: artist (the artist of the CD) compilation (is this CD a compilation album?) composer (the composer of the CD) discCount (the total number of discs in this CD’s album) discNumber (the index of this CD disc in the source album) genre (the genre of the CD) year (the year the album was recorded/released) Method: audioCDTracks Returned: SBElementArray ---- Class: iTunesDevicePlaylist Method: deviceTracks Returned: SBElementArray ---- Class: iTunesLibraryPlaylist Method: fileTracks Returned: SBElementArray ---- Method: URLTracks Returned: SBElementArray ---- Method: sharedTracks Returned: SBElementArray ---- Class: iTunesRadioTunerPlaylist Method: URLTracks Returned: SBElementArray ---- Class: iTunesSource Properties: capacity (the total size of the source if it has a fixed size) freeSpace (the free space on the source if it has a fixed size) kind () Method: audioCDPlaylists Returned: SBElementArray ---- Method: devicePlaylists Returned: SBElementArray ---- Method: libraryPlaylists Returned: SBElementArray ---- Method: playlists Returned: SBElementArray ---- Method: radioTunerPlaylists Returned: SBElementArray ---- Method: userPlaylists Returned: SBElementArray ---- Method: update Returned: void update the specified iPod ---- Method: eject Returned: void eject the specified iPod ---- Class: iTunesTrack Properties: album (the album name of the track) albumArtist (the album artist of the track) albumRating (the rating of the album for this track (0 to 100)) albumRatingKind (the rating kind of the album rating for this track) artist (the artist/source of the track) bitRate (the bit rate of the track (in kbps)) bookmark (the bookmark time of the track in seconds) bookmarkable (is the playback position for this track remembered?) bpm (the tempo of this track in beats per minute) category (the category of the track) comment (freeform notes about the track) compilation (is this track from a compilation album?) composer (the composer of the track) databaseID (the common, unique ID for this track. If two tracks in different playlists have the same database ID, they are sharing the same data.) dateAdded (the date the track was added to the playlist) objectDescription (the description of the track) discCount (the total number of discs in the source album) discNumber (the index of the disc containing this track on the source album) duration (the length of the track in seconds) enabled (is this track checked for playback?) episodeID (the episode ID of the track) episodeNumber (the episode number of the track) EQ (the name of the EQ preset of the track) finish (the stop time of the track in seconds) gapless (is this track from a gapless album?) genre (the music/audio genre (category) of the track) grouping (the grouping (piece) of the track. Generally used to denote movements within a classical work.) kind (a text description of the track) longDescription () lyrics (the lyrics of the track) modificationDate (the modification date of the content of this track) playedCount (number of times this track has been played) playedDate (the date and time this track was last played) podcast (is this track a podcast episode?) rating (the rating of this track (0 to 100)) ratingKind (the rating kind of this track) releaseDate (the release date of this track) sampleRate (the sample rate of the track (in Hz)) seasonNumber (the season number of the track) shufflable (is this track included when shuffling?) skippedCount (number of times this track has been skipped) skippedDate (the date and time this track was last skipped) show (the show name of the track) sortAlbum (override string to use for the track when sorting by album) sortArtist (override string to use for the track when sorting by artist) sortAlbumArtist (override string to use for the track when sorting by album artist) sortName (override string to use for the track when sorting by name) sortComposer (override string to use for the track when sorting by composer) sortShow (override string to use for the track when sorting by show name) size (the size of the track (in bytes)) start (the start time of the track in seconds) time (the length of the track in MM:SS format) trackCount (the total number of tracks on the source album) trackNumber (the index of the track on the source album) unplayed (is this track unplayed?) videoKind (kind of video track) volumeAdjustment (relative volume adjustment of the track (-100% to 100%)) year (the year the track was recorded/released) Method: artworks Returned: SBElementArray ---- Class: iTunesFileTrack Properties: location (the location of the file represented by this track) Method: refresh Returned: void update file track information from the current information in the track’s file ---- Class: iTunesURLTrack Properties: address (the URL for this track) Method: download Returned: void download podcast episode ---- Class: iTunesUserPlaylist Properties: shared (is this playlist shared?) smart (is this a Smart Playlist?) Method: fileTracks Returned: SBElementArray ---- Method: URLTracks Returned: SBElementArray ---- Method: sharedTracks Returned: SBElementArray ----
IM new year countdown with MacRuby
Posted by Matt Aimonetti in macruby on December 31st, 2009
Here is the geekiest way I found to wish Happy New Year to my IM contacts:
framework 'ScriptingBridge' app = SBApplication.applicationWithBundleIdentifier("com.apple.iChat") original_status = app.statusMessage new_year = Time.mktime(2010, 1, 1, 0, 0) loop do now = Time.now time_left = (new_year - now).ceil if time_left > 0 app.statusMessage = "#{time_left} seconds left until 2010 (EST)" else app.statusMessage = "Happy New Year 2010!" exit end sleep(1) end
If you are alone at home playing WOW, you can also trigger iTunes to play a mp3 file with crowd noise and people shouting ‘Happy New Year 2010‘!
Fun with MacRuby
Posted by Matt Aimonetti in macruby on December 29th, 2009
To be ready for 2010, I’m taking some time off relaxing and spending time with my family in Florida.
During my free time, I’ve been reading, catching up on movies and TV shows and worked on the MacRuby book that I am writing for O’Reilly.
I wrote a bunch of small apps, played with various APIs and every single time I was amazed by all the goodies Apple makes available to developers. My most recent discovery is very simple but I wanted to share it with you.
I often type text in English, French and Spanish and I even mix the languages from time to time. SnowLeopard comes with a great spellchecker that auto detects the language I’m typing in and is most of the time correct. It’s a very impressive feature and I was wondering if, as a MacRuby developer, I could use one of Apple’s lib to detect what language is being used. I dug through the documentation but didn’t find anything. I started looking at some header files and found the API to use 
framework 'Foundation' class String def language CFStringTokenizerCopyBestStringLanguage(self, CFRangeMake(0, self.size)) end end puts "Bonne année!".language # => "fr" puts "Happy new year!".language # => "en" puts "¡Feliz año nuevo!".language # => "es" puts "Felice anno nuovo!".language # => "it" puts "أعياد سعيدة".language # => "ar" puts "明けましておめでとうございます。".language # => "ja"
The documentation says that the result is not guaranteed to be accurate and that typically 200-400 characters are required to reliably guess the language of a string. (CFStringTokenizer Doc)
Probably not the most useful piece of code, but really cool none the less
Happy new year!
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