# TN3270E library for Ruby?

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/tn3270e-library-for-ruby/48733>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [November 23, 2005, 10:37pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/tn3270e-library-for-ruby/48733 "2005-11-23T22:37:54Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![wilsonb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@wilsonb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/wilsonb)\
**Post date:** [November 23, 2005, 10:37pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/tn3270e-library-for-ruby/48733/1 "2005-11-23T22:37:54Z")

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Has anyone done anything with the 3270 protocol in Ruby?  
I write a lot of code that needs connectivity to IBM mainframe hosts  
via TN3270E. At the moment, I do that by ‘wiring up’ a terminal  
emulator and telling it to do things for me.  
However, this means that I only get one instance per terminal session,  
and because these things are graphical, I can’t run it headless inside  
a cron job, etc, etc.

I now need something more industrial-strength that I can run many  
concurrent copies of, etc, etc. I’d like to build a Ruby framework  
for the kinds of things I do with 3270, and slap it on top of a  
library.

For fellow mainframe geeks, imagine (totally contrived example,  
probably not what it would look like):  
host.screen do |s|  
s.put :text =\> “Hello World” :field =\> ‘fieldname’  
s.transmit if scr.ready?  
end

Unfortunately, I can’t find anything that implements 3270 other than  
terminal emulators and other application-level stuff. It would be  
nice if there were some C library that could be wrapped as a Ruby  
extension.

Has anyone done anything like this, and just kept it around for  
personal use? I’d like to avoid reinventing the wheel, but if I’m the  
only one with this need, I’ll go ahead and start working on a library.

Thanks,  
–Wilson.

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**Author:** ![wilsonb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@wilsonb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/wilsonb)\
**Post date:** [November 24, 2005, 2:49pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/tn3270e-library-for-ruby/48733/2 "2005-11-24T14:49:38Z")

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Wilson,

I’m currently writing a book on enterprise ruby on rails for  
addison-wesley  
and your message definitely caught my eye because it’s one of the topics  
I  
want to cover. I don’t know of any software like you describe, but if  
you  
would like to discuss possible collaboration please let me know and we  
might  
be able to figure something out.

Obie

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**Author:** ![wilsonb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@wilsonb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/wilsonb)\
**Post date:** [November 24, 2005, 4:38pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/tn3270e-library-for-ruby/48733/3 "2005-11-24T16:38:28Z")

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Cool. I’m going to head out for some serious pumpkin pie consumption  
in a few minutes, but I’ll get in touch, possibly also on IRC. I  
still hold out hope for some existing work in this area; there’s a  
rumor that someone I failed to meet at RubyConf does this sort of  
thing at NASA, but I don’t have any details.

Thanks,  
–Wilson.