Ruby Forum Ruby > FastRI 0.3.0: standalone mode (qri, DRb not needed), additio

FastRI is an alternative to the ri documentation browser for Ruby.
As of 0.3.0, FastRI can operate in standalone mode (without using a DRb
server, see below), so it can now fully replace ri for most intents and
purposes.

Why prefer it over ri? FastRI
* actually works
* is *much* faster than ri
* can perform fast full-text searching over all your rdoc documentation
* is smarter than ri, and can find classes anywhere in the hierarchy 
without
  specifying the "full path"
* can be told to use different search strategies (completion, nested
  namespaces, etc.)
* supports RubyGems much better than ri, and knows which gem a 
method/class
  came from
* can serve RI documentation over DRb

Getting it
==========
Additional information, tarballs... at
  http://eigenclass.org/hiki.rb?fastri

FastRI can be installed with RubyGems:
  gem install fastri
(if you get an old version/a 404 error, please allow some time after the
release until the package propagates to the RubyForge mirrors). Please 
read
below for an important note regarding the RubyGems packages.

User-visible changes since version 0.2.1 (2006-11-23)
=====================================================
* get all the information about a class/module and its methods with 
--extended
* new search methods: complete namespace (-Om), partial completion on 
both
  namespace and method name (-Of), and case-indep. variants.
* --local (-L) and --remote (-L) (default) options. --local makes fri 
operate
  in standalone mode, without requiring fastri-server.
* new executable: qri, equivalent to fri -L (local, standalone mode)
* try to second-guess the correct method type if all search methods fail
  and the type was explicitly given

Usage
=====
Starting from 0.3.0, fri can be used in either local mode (--local, -L) 
or
remote mode (using a fastri-server, -R, --remote).
By default, fri will run in remote mode. There's a new executable named
qri that defaults to local mode (it behaves otherwise identically to 
fri).

Remote mode is slightly faster (typically about 150ms) , since the
documentation index is kept in memory and needs not be read from disk.

Local mode
----------
 $ qri Array
  ----------------------------------------------------------- Class: 
Array
       Arrays are ordered, integer-indexed collections of any object.
       Array indexing starts at 0, as in C or Java. A negative index is
 ...

 $ qri compact
  ---------------------------------------------------------- 
Array#compact
       array.compact     ->  an_array
  ------------------------------------------------------------------------
       Returns a copy of self with all nil elements removed.


Remote mode
-----------
There are two parts to using FastRI in remote mode:
* the server: fastri-server
* the client: fri

FastRI uses a Rinda Ring to allow servers to be discovered automatically
without needing to indicate the DRb URIs manually. It can work across
machines if you make sure the ring server is bound to the correct 
interface,
and the ACL permissions are correct.

Running in remote mode:

 $ fastri-server      (creates the index on the first run, blocks)

Later, (times measured with a cold cache):
 $ time ruby bin/fri -f plain Array#fetch
 ------------------------------------------------------------ 
Array#fetch
      array.fetch(index)                    -> obj
 [...]
 real    0m0.287s  (real    0m0.127s with a hot cache)
 user    0m0.048s
 sys     0m0.008s

Compare to:
 $ time ri -T -f plain Array#fetch
 ------------------------------------------------------------ 
Array#fetch
 [...]
 real    0m10.136s (real    ~ 1.5s with a hot cache)
 user    0m1.140s
 sys     0m0.464s

This illustrates FastRI's ability to locate classes deep in the class
hierarchy:

 $ fri Base
 ------------------------------------------------------ Multiple 
choices:

      ActionMailer::Base, ActionView::Base, ActionWebService::API::Base,
      ActionWebService::Base, ActionWebService::Client::Base,
      ActiveRecord::Base, MapReduce::ActiveRecord::Base,
      RSS::Maker::Base, Scruffy::Components::Base,
      Scruffy::Formatters::Base, Scruffy::Layers::Base,
      Scruffy::Renderers::Base, Scruffy::Themes::Base

 $ fri Themes::Base
 ------------------------------------------- Class: 
Scruffy::Themes::Base
      Scruffy::Themes::Base
      Author: Brasten Sager

      Date:   August 14th, 2006

Compare to
 $ ri Themes::Base      .... several seconds later ...
 Nothing known about Themes::Base

A small note about RubyGems + FastRI.
=====================================
RubyGems adds a noticeable overhead to fri, making it run slower than if 
you
installed it directly from the tarball with setup.rb.

Compare the execution time when installed with RubyGems:
  $ time fri -f plain String > /dev/null

  real  0m0.385s
  user  0m0.244s
  sys  0m0.036s

to the time fri actually takes to run, without the overhead introduced 
by
RubyGems:
  $ time ruby bin/fri -f plain String > /dev/null

  real  0m0.088s
  user  0m0.040s
  sys  0m0.008s

If you care about those extra 300ms (and there are situations where they 
will
matter, e.g. when using fri for method completion), get FastRI from the
tarballs.

License
=======
FastRI is licensed under the same terms as Ruby. See LICENSE.

Feedback
========
Bug reports, patches, comments... are appreciated.
You can contact the author via <mfp@acm.org>. Please add "fastri" to the
subject in order to bypass the spam filters.

From: Mauricio Julio Fernández Pradier
>Subject: [ANN] FastRI 0.3.0: standalone mode (qri, DRb not needed),
>additional search methods, extended class info

Any kind soul pls tell my why my fri does not rebuild on my windows box 
(linux box is fine)

Building index.
c:/ruby/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/fastri-0.3.0.1/bin/fastri-server:32:in 
`initializ
e': No such file or directory - C:\Documents and 
Settings\peñaijm/.fastri-index
(Errno::ENOENT)
        from 
c:/ruby/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/fastri-0.3.0.1/bin/fastri-server:32:
in `open'
        from 
c:/ruby/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/fastri-0.3.0.1/bin/fastri-server:32:
in `make_index'
        from 
c:/ruby/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/fastri-0.3.0.1/bin/fastri-server:130

        from c:/ruby/lib/ruby/1.8/optparse.rb:1247:in `call'
        from c:/ruby/lib/ruby/1.8/optparse.rb:1247:in `order!'
        from c:/ruby/lib/ruby/1.8/optparse.rb:1205:in `catch'
        from c:/ruby/lib/ruby/1.8/optparse.rb:1205:in `order!'
        from c:/ruby/lib/ruby/1.8/optparse.rb:1279:in `permute!'
        from c:/ruby/lib/ruby/1.8/optparse.rb:1300:in `parse!'
        from 
c:/ruby/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/fastri-0.3.0.1/bin/fastri-server:109

        from c:/ruby/bin/fastri-server:16:in `load'
        from c:/ruby/bin/fastri-server:16

Kind regards -botp

On Tue, Jan 30, 2007 at 02:05:00AM +0900, Peña, Botp wrote:
> (Errno::ENOENT)
>         from c:/ruby/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/fastri-0.3.0.1/bin/fastri-server:32:
> in `open'
>         from c:/ruby/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/fastri-0.3.0.1/bin/fastri-server:32:
> in `make_index'

Does the C:\Documents and Settings\peñaijm directory exist? (maybe a 
problem
with the eñe?)

It should work if you set the HOME or USERPROFILE environment variables 
so
they point to the actual directory (or alternatively HOMEDRIVE and 
HOMEPATH).
You can also specify the location of the index file to be built/used 
with
--index-file (both in fastri-server and fri/qri) --- some sort of alias 
(or
.bat wrapper) would make this practical.

FastRI uses the following code to find the home directory:

  # Returns the home directory (win32-aware).
  def find_home
    # stolen from RubyGems
    ['HOME', 'USERPROFILE'].each do |homekey|
      return ENV[homekey] if ENV[homekey]
    end
    if ENV['HOMEDRIVE'] && ENV['HOMEPATH']
      return "#{ENV['HOMEDRIVE']}:#{ENV['HOMEPATH']}"
    end
    begin
      File.expand_path("~")
    rescue StandardError => ex
      if File::ALT_SEPARATOR
        "C:/"
      else
        "/"
      end
    end
  end

Mauricio Fernandez wrote:
> > e': No such file or directory - C:\Documents and Settings\peñaijm/.fastri-index
> > (Errno::ENOENT)
> >         from c:/ruby/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/fastri-0.3.0.1/bin/fastri-server:32:
> > in `open'
> >         from c:/ruby/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/fastri-0.3.0.1/bin/fastri-server:32:
> > in `make_index'
>
> Does the C:\Documents and Settings\peñaijm directory exist? (maybe a problem
> with the eñe?)

<snip>

That would be my guess.  Does this code snippet work or raise an
error?

Dir.entries(" C:\Documents and Settings")

Regards,

Dan

Mauricio Fernandez wrote:
> FastRI is an alternative to the ri documentation browser for Ruby.
> As of 0.3.0, FastRI can operate in standalone mode (without using a DRb
> server, see below), so it can now fully replace ri for most intents and
> purposes.

I currently have fastri 0.2.1 installed via the tarball.

Should I uninstall fastri 0.2.1 prior to installing fastri 0.3.0?
>
> > qri that defaults to local mode (it behaves otherwise identically to fri).

I have downloaded fastri 0.3.0 and unzipped...not setup yet.

I noticed that there is no "qri.rb" file in any of the folders. Did I
download the right version?
The readme.en file does not mention qri as far as I can see.

When and often should I rebuild the  index with fastri-server -b

When and often should I rebuild the full-text index with fastri-server
-B

Thank you

From Mauricio Fernandez wrote:
# > Does the C:\Documents and Settings\peñaijm directory exist?
# > (maybe a problem with the eñe?)

the dir exist. i'll have to check w the eñe later when i'm back home.
Btw, the other windows pc here i'm using works fine though using the -b 
option, BUT if fails using -B option.

<snip>
Indexing RI docs for win32console-1.0.8-i386 version mswin32.
Indexing RI docs for windows-pr version 0.6.2.
c:/ruby/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/fastri-0.3.0.1/bin/fastri-server:71: [BUG
] Segmentation fault
ruby 1.8.5 (2006-08-25) [i386-mswin32]
This application has requested the Runtime to terminate it in an unusual
 way. Please contact the application's support team for more 
information.
C:\Documents and Settings\peñaijm>

I also notice i'm using an unpatched ruby ver. Maybe i'll have to update 
that too?

I'll check the other env vars you mentioned too.

From: Daniel Berger [mailto:djberg96@gmail.com]
# That would be my guess.  Does this code snippet work or raise an
# error?
#
# Dir.entries(" C:\Documents and Settings")

that errs. I had to put double "\\", so Dir.entries("C:\\Documents and 
Settings") worked.

thanks and kind regards -botp

Peña wrote:
> c:/ruby/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/fastri-0.3.0.1/bin/fastri-server:71: [BUG
> ] Segmentation fault
> ruby 1.8.5 (2006-08-25) [i386-mswin32]
> This application has requested the Runtime to terminate it in an unusual
>  way. Please contact the application's support team for more information.
Random guess: Is it a fresh install? I've had problems resulting from
installing the one-click over an older install.

Devin

From: Devin Mullins [mailto:twifkak@comcast.net]
# Peña wrote:
# c:/ruby/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/fastri-0.3.0.1/bin/fastri-serve
# r:71: [BUG] Segmentation fault
# > ruby 1.8.5 (2006-08-25) [i386-mswin32]
# > This application has requested the Runtime to terminate it
# > in an unusual way. Please contact the application's support team
# >for more information.
#
# Random guess: Is it a fresh install? I've had problems resulting from
# installing the one-click over an older install.

the one-click requires me to install fresh (it deletes the whole \ruby 
dir). i have not updated my one-click yet (to ruby185-22). maybe i'll 
try experimenting with the mswin32 
(ftp://ftp.ruby-lang.org/pub/ruby/binaries/mswin32/) version instead 
(while waiting for the next release of the oneclick).

kind regards -botp

On Tue, Jan 30, 2007 at 07:05:07AM +0900, bbiker wrote:
> Mauricio Fernandez wrote:
> > FastRI is an alternative to the ri documentation browser for Ruby.
> > As of 0.3.0, FastRI can operate in standalone mode (without using a DRb
> > server, see below), so it can now fully replace ri for most intents and
> > purposes.
> 
> I currently have fastri 0.2.1 installed via the tarball.
> 
> Should I uninstall fastri 0.2.1 prior to installing fastri 0.3.0?

There should be no need to; if you install with setup.rb it will just
overwrite 0.2.1.

> >
> > > qri that defaults to local mode (it behaves otherwise identically to fri).
> 
> I have downloaded fastri 0.3.0 and unzipped...not setup yet.
> 
> I noticed that there is no "qri.rb" file in any of the folders. Did I 
> download the right version?

qri.rb is generated at install time by pre-install.rb (one of setup.rb's
hooks); it's just a copy of bin/fri (I'd use a symlink if it were 
supported on
all platforms).

> The readme.en file does not mention qri as far as I can see.

I haven't updated README.en, but qri should be available once you 
install.

> When and often should I rebuild the  index with fastri-server -b

You need to run it once before you use fri(fastri-server)/qri. You can 
rebuild
the index when you install a gem whose documentation you want to access 
with
fri/qri. fastri-server -b will reindex all the available documentation, 
but it
only takes ~15s for over 110 installed gems on a slow computer (I might 
make
it incremental someday).

> When and often should I rebuild the full-text index with fastri-server -B

Same as fastri-server -b, rebuild whenever you want newly installed
documentation to be searchable with fri/qri.

From: Mauricio Julio Fernández Pradier :
# Does the C:\Documents and Settings\peñaijm directory exist?
# (maybe a problem with the eñe?)

verified, it's the eñe alright. I logged in using a simple userid, it 
works. On another pc, i used a different folder dir, just the root C:\, 
and it also works.

but i really would hope that there is a possible fix for this since i 
and some of us here have eñe on their names/loginid. Is ruby mungling the 
eñe-ed text?

kind regards -botp

On Mon, 2007-01-29 at 20:54 +0900, Mauricio Fernandez wrote:
> FastRI is an alternative to the ri documentation browser for Ruby.
> As of 0.3.0, FastRI can operate in standalone mode (without using a DRb
> server, see below), so it can now fully replace ri for most intents and
> purposes.
> 
<strip>
> Feedback
> ========
> Bug reports, patches, comments... are appreciated.
> You can contact the author via <mfp@acm.org>. Please add "fastri" to the
> subject in order to bypass the spam filters.
> 
> 

Dunno, fastri used to work fine for me with 1.8.4 (installed from Ubuntu
repos) but since I complied Ruby and components manually, it stopped
working and throws wierd errors:

$ fri Array (fri Array#each and other stuff returns nil)
/usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/fastri-0.3.0.1/lib/fastri/ri_index.rb:354:in 
`initialize': No such file or directory - 
/usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/doc/mocha-0.3.2/ri/Array/cdesc-Array.yaml 
(Errno::ENOENT)

from 
/usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/fastri-0.3.0.1/lib/fastri/ri_index.rb:354:in 
`open'

from 
/usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/fastri-0.3.0.1/lib/fastri/ri_index.rb:354:in 
`get_class'

from 
/usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/fastri-0.3.0.1/lib/fastri/ri_index.rb:352:in 
`each'

from 
/usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/fastri-0.3.0.1/lib/fastri/ri_index.rb:352:in 
`get_class'

from 
/usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/fastri-0.3.0.1/lib/fastri/ri_service.rb:208:in 
`info'

from 
/usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/fastri-0.3.0.1/lib/fastri/ri_service.rb:418:in 
`capture_stdout'

from 
/usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/fastri-0.3.0.1/lib/fastri/ri_service.rb:207:in 
`info'

from /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/fastri-0.3.0.1/bin/qri:325

from /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/fastri-0.3.0.1/bin/qri:320:in
`each'

from /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/fastri-0.3.0.1/bin/qri:320
        from /usr/local/bin/qri:18:in `load'
        from /usr/local/bin/qri:18

Am I missing something here?

On Thu, Feb 01, 2007 at 04:27:12AM +0900, Hemant Kumar wrote:
> On Mon, 2007-01-29 at 20:54 +0900, Mauricio Fernandez wrote:
> > FastRI is an alternative to the ri documentation browser for Ruby.
> > As of 0.3.0, FastRI can operate in standalone mode (without using a DRb
> > server, see below), so it can now fully replace ri for most intents and
> > purposes.
[...]
> Dunno, fastri used to work fine for me with 1.8.4 (installed from Ubuntu
> repos) but since I complied Ruby and components manually, it stopped
> working and throws wierd errors:
> 
> $ fri Array (fri Array#each and other stuff returns nil)
   ==== (actually qri :)
> /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/fastri-0.3.0.1/lib/fastri/ri_index.rb:354:in `initialize': No such file or directory - /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/doc/mocha-0.3.2/ri/Array/cdesc-Array.yaml (Errno::ENOENT)
[...]
> from /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/fastri-0.3.0.1/bin/qri:320
>         from /usr/local/bin/qri:18:in `load'
>         from /usr/local/bin/qri:18

Does this still happen after rebuilding the index with fastri-server -b?
If some gems have been removed, the index will have dangling pointers to
inexistent files.

From: self :)
# From: Mauricio Julio Fernández Pradier :
# # Does the C:\Documents and Settings\peñaijm directory exist?
# # (maybe a problem with the eñe?)
#
# verified, it's the eñe alright. I logged in using a simple
# userid, it works. On another pc, i used a different folder
# dir, just the root C:\, and it also works.
#
# but i really would hope that there is a possible fix for this
# since i and some of us here have eñe on their names/loginid.
# Is ruby mungling the eñe-ed text?

arggh, I find discrepancy bw ruby and mswindows env vars :(

C:\family\ruby>cat test.rb
# environ tests
p "---ENV['USERPROFILE']---"
p ENV['USERPROFILE']
#p Dir.entries ENV['USERPROFILE']  # <-----THIS ERRS !!
p Dir.entries('C:\\Documents and Settings\\peñaijm')  #<-- this is fine

C:\family\ruby>ruby test.rb
"---ENV['USERPROFILE']---"
"C:\\Documents and Settings\\pe\244aijm"
[".", "..", "#test.rb#", "#test.txt#", ".irbrc", ".irb_history", 
".java",
".jedit", ".jpi_cache", ".plugin140_01.trace", ".plugin141_01.trace", 
".tm
econsole", ".vimrc", ".vimrc~", ".wgetrc", ".zsh_history", 
"1151730757-oem
30.inf", "1151730757-oem30.PNF", "1151730757-oem31.inf", 
"1151730757-oem31
.PNF", "1151730757-oem32.inf", "1151730757-oem32.PNF", 
"1151917885-oem30.i
nf", "1151917885-oem30.PNF", "1151917885-oem31.inf", 
"1151917885-oem31.PNF
", "1151917885-oem32.inf", "1151917885-oem32.PNF", 
"1170304489-oem3.inf",
"usbsermptxp.sys", "USB_CMCS_2000.INF", "USB_MOT_A1000.INF", 
"USB_MOT_BRIT.
INF", "UserData", "vimfiles", "wengo", "WINDOWS", "WinVNC.log", "yaml", 
"y
aml.1", "yaml.2", "yaml.3", "zshrc", "zshrc_old", "zshrc~", "_viminfo"]

Is there other way to get the userid in windows without going thru ENV?
Maybe, some spanish ruby hackers have some ideas here..

kind regards -botp