How do I call Windows DLL functions from Ruby?

Question

I want to access functions within a DLL using Ruby. I want to use the low-level access of C while still retaining the simplicity of writing Ruby code. How do I accomplish this?

Answer 1

Have a look at Win32API. It's a fairly easy (but arcane) interface to the Windows 32 API, or DLLs.

Documentation is here, some examples here. To give you a taste:

require "Win32API"    
def get_computer_name
  name = " " * 128
  size = "128"
  Win32API.new('kernel32', 'GetComputerName', ['P', 'P'], 'I').call(name, size)  
  name.unpack("A*")  
end

Answer 2

I think you can use ruby/dl http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.ruby/browse_thread/thread/95a483230caf3d39