# Ruby scripting support for Emacs **URL:** \ **Category:** Ruby\ **Created:** [April 24, 2006, 10:48am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-scripting-support-for-emacs/58634 "2006-04-24T10:48:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![alder](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/a4c791/32.png) [@alder](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/alder)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2006, 10:48am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-scripting-support-for-emacs/58634/1 "2006-04-24T10:48:12Z")
Hi Is there a way to use Ruby as a scripting language for Emacs? (There’s a way to use Python for that [1], but I haven’t managed to find the equivalent for Ruby) -Alder [1] Pymacs: [http://pymacs.progiciels-bpi.ca/](http://pymacs.progiciels-bpi.ca/) ---
**Author:** ![alder](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/a4c791/32.png) [@alder](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/alder)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2006, 4:10pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-scripting-support-for-emacs/58634/2 "2006-04-24T16:10:40Z")
Alder G. wrote: > Hi Hello. > Is there a way to use Ruby as a scripting language for Emacs? Try EL4R: Emacs Lisp for Ruby, [http://www.rubyist.net/~rubikitch/computer/el4r/index.en.html](http://www.rubyist.net/~rubikitch/computer/el4r/index.en.html) Regards, ---
**Author:** ![alder](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/a4c791/32.png) [@alder](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/alder)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2006, 6:39pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-scripting-support-for-emacs/58634/3 "2006-04-24T18:39:46Z")
On Apr 24, 2006, at 10:47 AM, Alder G. wrote: > Is there a way to use Ruby as a scripting language for Emacs? > > (There’s a way to use Python for that [1], but I haven’t managed to > find the equivalent for Ruby) > > -Alder > > [1] Pymacs: [http://pymacs.progiciels-bpi.ca/](http://pymacs.progiciels-bpi.ca/) The emacs wiki is pretty comprehensive when searching for stuff like this: [http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/EmacsRuby](http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/EmacsRuby) – Daniel ---
**Author:** ![alder](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/a4c791/32.png) [@alder](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/alder)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2006, 6:55pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-scripting-support-for-emacs/58634/4 "2006-04-24T18:55:14Z")
On 4/24/06, Bil K. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > ## Regards, > > Bil > [http://fun3d.larc.nasa.gov](http://fun3d.larc.nasa.gov) Thanks, Bil EmacsRuby is truly what I was looking for. Unfortunately, it seems to have some problems working on the Windows platform. Since the author expressed interest in attempts to run EmacsRuby under Win32, I sent him a detailed account of the problems I encountered. I’ll attach it here, maybe someone would benefit: To: EmacsRuby’s author Subject: EmacsRuby on Windows Hi there You mentioned in EmacsRub’s homepage that you don’t have access to a Windows machine. I have Windows XP Pro as my desktop workstation, so I’ll share my attempt to install EmacsRuby on Windows. Ruby version: ruby 1.8.4 (2005-12-24) [i386-mswin32] (pretty much the current stable standard) 1. Attempting to download and install EmacsRuby in the recommended way: ruby -ropen-uri -e ‘URI(“[http://www.rubyist.net/~rubikitch/archive/el4r-1.0.3.tar.gz](http://www.rubyist.net/~rubikitch/archive/el4r-1.0.3.tar.gz)”).read.display’ > el4r-1.0.3.tar.gz doesn’t work. The resulting local file el4r-1.0.3.tar.gz is corrupted for some reason (manual download through the browser worked, however). 1. Windows machine don’t normally have tar (I do), let along the tar + gzip combination (even I don’t :-(), so trying to expand through: tar xzf el4r-1.0.3.tar.gz doesn’t work. Have you considered a gem or at least a Zip release? 1. Running setup.rb worked. However File.expand\_path(“~”) didn’t work within the various files in bin. Strangely enough, File.expand\_path(“~”) worked fine in IRB, but trying File.expand\_path(s) where s contains the ~ character produced the following exception trying to run the first of two setup-lines (“ruby -S el4r-rctool -p”): C:/ruby/bin/el4r-rctool:189: (eval):1:in `expand_path': couldn't find HOME environment -- expanding `~/.el4r’ (ArgumentError) from (eval):1 I solved this by replacing within el4r-rctool all “~” in paths to “/”, which is the directory Emacs uses as HOME. After that, the two setup lines: ruby -S el4r-rctool -p ruby -S el4r-rctool -i executed appearantly without exception. But when I entered Emacs and ran el4r-boot, I got a message: “el4r instance dead” At that point, I tried running the tests: ruby bin/el4r-runtest testing/test-el4r.rb --batch -l testlog –emacs=[emacs binary name] but again received the exception “couldn’t find HOME environment”. At this point I gave up ☹ Please let me know if there’s anything I can do to help you stabilize el4r for Windows, since I’m very interested in programming Emacs with Ruby. Regrads, Alder