# Howto use rubyscript2exe to package some external applicatio **URL:** \ **Category:** Ruby\ **Created:** [February 12, 2006, 11:53pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/howto-use-rubyscript2exe-to-package-some-external-applicatio/66321 "2006-02-12T23:53:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/u/4bbf92/32.png) [@unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/unknown)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2006, 11:53pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/howto-use-rubyscript2exe-to-package-some-external-applicatio/66321/1 "2006-02-12T23:53:49Z")
Dear all, I would like to distribute a Ruby application that calls an external application. So far, I give the potential user the opportunity to enter or change some Gnuplot code, which is sent to Gnuplot via Open3 and produces some plot. Now, I would like to avoid asking the user to make sure he has Gnuplot installed. 1.) How can I ensure that everything that I need from Gnuplot is included in my application ? Is this done automatically by rubyscript2exe ? 2.) Can the Open3 syntax be used even if Gnuplot is not installed on the system the new distributed file is run on - will some file from the package created by rubyscript2exe (question 1) be substituted for the missing installation of Gnuplot ? Thank you very much, Best regards, Axel ---
**Author:** ![unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/u/4bbf92/32.png) [@unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/unknown)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2006, 12:04am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/howto-use-rubyscript2exe-to-package-some-external-applicatio/66321/2 "2006-02-13T00:04:04Z")
DÅ?a Nedeľa 12 Február 2006 23:53 removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid napísal: > 1.) How can I ensure that everything that I need from Gnuplot > > Axel I have very, very strong doubts rubyscript2exe will detect and pack external applications. My wild guess is rubyscript2exe sort of dumps the state of the interpreter at the end of the execution of your script, with all dependencies loaded in memory. Since Gnuplot is an external application not residing in the memory space of the interpreter, you’re probably stuck with making sure Gnuplot is installed. You could also make an installer for your application and distribute Gnuplot with it. Disclaimer: I might be completely wrong. David V. ---
**Author:** ![unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/u/4bbf92/32.png) [@unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/unknown)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2006, 1:09am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/howto-use-rubyscript2exe-to-package-some-external-applicatio/66321/3 "2006-02-13T01:09:09Z")
removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid wrote: > I would like to distribute a Ruby application that calls > an external application. > 1.) How can I ensure that everything that I need from Gnuplot > is included in my application ? Is this done automatically > by rubyscript2exe ? No, it’s not done automatically. You can tell rubyscript2exe to include an external executable in the package by setting the constant RUBYSCRIPT2EXE\_BIN at “compile” time RUBYSCRIPT2EXE\_BIN = [‘myapp.exe’] When the “compiled” executable is run, PATH is altered so that the bundled executable will be available. This works well for executables that are single self-contained files, as well as for dlls (using RUBYSCRIPT2EXE\_DLLS), but probably not so well for programs that expect lots of support files to be installed alongside. hth alex ---
**Author:** ![unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/u/4bbf92/32.png) [@unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/unknown)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2006, 9:53am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/howto-use-rubyscript2exe-to-package-some-external-applicatio/66321/4 "2006-02-13T09:53:39Z")
> I would like to distribute a Ruby application that calls an > external application. So far, I give the potential user the > opportunity to enter or change some Gnuplot code, which is > sent to Gnuplot via Open3 and produces some plot. Now, I > would like to avoid asking the user to make sure he has > Gnuplot installed. > > 1.) How can I ensure that everything that I need from Gnuplot > is included in my application ? Is this done automatically by > rubyscript2exe ? No, it’s not. But, according to the RubyScript2Exe documentation, you can do this: Put everything you need (your application and other applications) in one directory tree, build an RBA from this directory with Tar2RubyScript [1] and “compile” this RBA with RubyScript2Exe [2]. All steps, including the rationale of both projects, are described in [3]. gegroet, Erik V. - [http://www.erikveen.dds.nl/](http://www.erikveen.dds.nl/) [1] [http://www.erikveen.dds.nl/tar2rubyscript/index.html](http://www.erikveen.dds.nl/tar2rubyscript/index.html) [2] [http://www.erikveen.dds.nl/rubyscript2exe/index.html](http://www.erikveen.dds.nl/rubyscript2exe/index.html) [3] [Distributing Ruby Applications - Theory and Practice of Building, Packing and Distributing Ruby Applications](http://www.erikveen.dds.nl/distributingrubyapplications/index.html)