Ruby Way, The: Solutions and Techniques in Ruby Programming, 3rd Edition

Description

• Copyright 2015
• Dimensions: 7" x 9-1/4"
• Pages: 816
• Edition: 3rd

• eBook
• ISBN-10: 0-13-280826-9
• ISBN-13: 978-0-13-280826-2

For more than a decade, Ruby developers have turned to The Ruby Way for reliable “how-to” guidance on effective Ruby programming. Now, Hal Fulton and André Arko have thoroughly updated this classic guide to cover new language enhancements and developers’ experiences through Ruby 2.1.

The new edition illuminates Ruby 2.1 through 400+ examples, each answering the question: “How do I do this in Ruby?” For each example, they present both a task description and realistic technical constraints. Next, they walk step-by-step through presenting one good solution, offering detailed explanations to promote deeper understanding.

Conveniently organized by topic, The Ruby Way, Third Edition makes it easier than ever to find the specific solution you want—and to write better code by reflecting Ruby’s unique philosophy and spirit.

Coverage includes

• Ruby 2.1 overview: terminology, philosophy, and basic principles
• Best practices for strings and regular expressions
• Efficiently internationalizing your code
• Performing calculations (including trigonometry, calculus, statistics, and time/date calculations)
• Working with “Rubyesque” objects such as symbols and ranges
• Using arrays, hashes, stacks, queues, trees, graphs, and other data structures
• Efficiently storing data with YAML, JSON, and SQLite3
• Leveraging object-oriented and dynamic features, from multiple constructors to program inspection
• Building GUIs with Shoes 4, Ruby/Tk, Ruby/GTK3, QtRuby, and other toolkits
• Improving thread performance by understanding Ruby’s synchronization methods and avoiding its pitfalls
• Automating system administration with Ruby
• Data formats: JSON, XML, RSS, Atom, RMagick, PDF, and more
• Testing and debugging with RSpec, Minitest, Cucumber, byebug, and pry
• Measuring Ruby program performance
• Packaging and distributing code, and managing dependencies with Bundler
• Network programming: clients, time servers, POP, SMTP, IMAP, Open-URI
• Web applications: HTTP servers, Rails, Sinatra, HTML generation, and more
• Writing distributed Ruby software with drb
• Choosing modern development tools that maximize your productivity

All source code for this book may be downloaded at www.rubyhacker.com.

informit.com/aw

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Sample Content

Table of Contents

Foreword    xxiv

Acknowledgments    xxviii

About the Authors    xxxii

Introduction xxxiii

1  Ruby in Review    1

1.1 An Introduction to Object Orientation    2

1.1.1 What Is an Object?    2

1.1.2 Inheritance    4

1.1.3 Polymorphism    6

1.1.4 A Few More Terms    7

1.2 Basic Ruby Syntax and Semantics    8

1.2.1 Keywords and Identifiers    9

1.2.2 Comments and Embedded Documentation    10

1.2.3 Constants, Variables, and Types    11

1.2.4 Operators and Precedence    13

1.2.5 A Sample Program    14

1.2.6 Looping and Branching    17

1.2.7 Exceptions    22

1.3 OOP in Ruby    25

1.3.1 Objects    26

1.3.2 Built-in Classes    26

1.3.3 Modules and Mixins    28

1.3.4 Creating Classes    29

1.3.5 Methods and Attributes    34

1.4 Dynamic Aspects of Ruby    36

1.4.1 Coding at Runtime    36

1.4.2 Reflection    38

1.4.3 Missing Methods    40

1.4.4 Garbage Collection    40

1.5 Training Your Intuition: Things to Remember    41

1.5.1 Syntax Issues    41

1.5.2 Perspectives in Programming    44

1.5.3 Ruby’s case Statement    47

1.5.4 Rubyisms and Idioms    50

1.5.5 Expression Orientation and Other Miscellaneous Issues    57

1.6 Ruby Jargon and Slang    59

1.7 Conclusion    62

2  Working with Strings    63

2.1 Representing Ordinary Strings    64

2.2 Representing Strings with Alternate Notations    65

2.3 Using Here-Documents    65

2.4 Finding the Length of a String    67

2.5 Processing a Line at a Time    68

2.6 Processing a Character or Byte at a Time    68

2.7 Performing Specialized String Comparisons    69

2.8 Tokenizing a String    71

2.9 Formatting a String    73

2.10 Using Strings as IO Objects    74

2.11 Controlling Uppercase and Lowercase    74

2.12 Accessing and Assigning Substrings    75

2.13 Substituting in Strings    78

2.14 Searching a String    79

2.15 Converting Between Characters and ASCII Codes    80

2.16 Implicit and Explicit Conversion    80

2.17 Appending an Item onto a String    83

2.18 Removing Trailing Newlines and Other Characters    83

2.19 Trimming Whitespace from a String    84

2.20 Repeating Strings    85

2.21 Embedding Expressions within Strings    85

2.22 Delayed Interpolation of Strings    86

2.23 Parsing Comma-Separated Data    86

2.24 Converting Strings to Numbers (Decimal and Otherwise)    87

2.25 Encoding and Decoding rot13 Text    89

2.26 Encrypting Strings    90

2.27 Compressing Strings    91

2.28 Counting Characters in Strings    92

2.29 Reversing a String    92

2.30 Removing Duplicate Characters    93

2.31 Removing Specific Characters    93

2.32 Printing Special Characters    93

2.33 Generating Successive Strings    94

2.34 Calculating a    32-Bit CRC    94

2.35 Calculating the SHA-256 Hash of a String    95

2.36 Calculating the Levenshtein Distance Between Two Strings    96

2.37 Encoding and Decoding Base64 Strings    98

2.38 Expanding and Compressing Tab Characters    98

2.39 Wrapping Lines of Text    99

2.40 Conclusion    100

3  Working with Regular Expressions    101

3.1 Regular Expression Syntax    102

3.2 Compiling Regular Expressions    104

3.3 Escaping Special Characters    105

3.4 Using Anchors    105

3.5 Using Quantifiers    106

3.6 Positive and Negative Lookahead    109

3.7 Positive and Negative Lookbehind    110

3.8 Accessing Backreferences    111

3.9 Named Matches    114

3.10 Using Character Classes    116

3.11 Extended Regular Expressions    118

3.12 Matching a Newline with a Dot    119

3.13 Using Embedded Options    119

3.14 Using Embedded Subexpressions    120

3.14.1 Recursion in Regular Expressions    121

3.15 A Few Sample Regular Expressions    122

3.15.1 Matching an IP Address    122

3.15.2 Matching a Keyword-Value Pair    123

3.15.3 Matching Roman Numerals    124

3.15.4 Matching Numeric Constants    125

3.15.5 Matching a Date/Time String    125

3.15.6 Detecting Doubled Words in Text    126

3.15.7 Matching All-Caps Words    127

3.15.8 Matching Version Numbers    127

3.15.9 A Few Other Patterns    127

3.16 Conclusion    128

4  Internationalization in Ruby    129

4.1 Background and Terminology    131

4.2 Working with Character Encodings    135

4.2.1 Normalization    136

4.2.2 Encoding Conversions    139

4.2.3 Transliteration    141

4.2.4 Collation    141

4.3 Translations    144

4.3.1 Defaults    146

4.3.2 Namespaces    147

4.3.3 Interpolation    148

4.3.4 Pluralization    149

4.4 Localized Formatting    151

4.4.1 Dates and Times    151

4.4.2 Numbers    152

4.4.3 Currencies    153

4.5 Conclusion    153

5  Performing Numerical Calculations    155

5.1 Representing Numbers in Ruby    156

5.2 Basic Operations on Numbers    157

5.3 Rounding Floating Point Values    158

5.4 Comparing Floating Point Numbers    160

5.5 Formatting Numbers for Output    162

5.6 Formatting Numbers with Commas    162

5.7 Working with Very Large Integers    163

5.8 Using BigDecimal    163

5.9 Working with Rational Values    166

5.10 Matrix Manipulation    167

5.11 Working with Complex Numbers    171

5.12 Using mathn    172

5.13 Finding Prime Factorization, GCD, and LCM    173

5.14 Working with Prime Numbers    174

5.15 Implicit and Explicit Numeric Conversion    175

5.16 Coercing Numeric Values    176

5.17 Performing Bit-Level Operations on Numbers    177

5.18 Performing Base Conversions    179

5.19 Finding Cube Roots, Fourth Roots, and So On    180

5.20 Determining the Architecture’s Byte Order    181

5.21 Numerical Computation of a Definite Integral    182

5.22 Trigonometry in Degrees, Radians, and Grads    183

5.23 Finding Logarithms with Arbitrary Bases    184

5.24 Finding the Mean, Median, and Mode of a Data Set    185

5.25 Variance and Standard Deviation    187

5.26 Finding a Correlation Coefficient    187

5.27 Generating Random Numbers    189

5.28 Caching Functions with Memoization    190

5.29 Conclusion    191

6  Symbols and Ranges    193

6.1 Symbols    193

6.1.1 Symbols as Enumerations    195

6.1.2 Symbols as Metavalues    196

6.1.3 Symbols, Variables, and Methods    197

6.1.4 Converting to/from Symbols    197

6.2 Ranges    199

6.2.1 Open and Closed Ranges    199

6.2.2 Finding Endpoints    200

6.2.3 Iterating Over Ranges    200

6.2.4 Testing Range Membership    201

6.2.5 Converting to Arrays    202

6.2.6 Backward Ranges    202

6.2.7 The Flip-Flop Operator    203

6.2.8 Custom Ranges    206

6.3 Conclusion    209

7  Working with Times and Dates    211

7.1 Determining the Current Time    212

7.2 Working with Specific Times (Post-Epoch)    212

7.3 Determining the Day of the Week    214

7.4 Determining the Date of Easter    215

7.5 Finding the Nth Weekday in a Month    215

7.6 Converting Between Seconds and Larger Units    217

7.7 Converting to and from the Epoch    217

7.8 Working with Leap Seconds: Don’t!    218

7.9 Finding the Day of the Year    219

7.10 Validating a Date or Time    219

7.11 Finding the Week of the Year    220

7.12 Detecting Leap Years    221

7.13 Obtaining the Time Zone    222

7.14 Working with Hours and Minutes Only    222

7.15 Comparing Time Values    223

7.16 Adding Intervals to Time Values    223

7.17 Computing the Difference in Two Time Values    224

7.18 Working with Specific Dates (Pre-Epoch)    224

7.19 Time, Date, and DateTime    225

7.20 Parsing a Date or Time String    225

7.21 Formatting and Printing Time Values    226

7.22 Time Zone Conversions    227

7.23 Determining the Number of Days in a Month    228

7.24 Dividing a Month into Weeks    229

7.25 Conclusion    230

8  Arrays, Hashes, and Other Enumerables    231

8.1 Working with Arrays    232

8.1.1 Creating and Initializing an Array    232

8.1.2 Accessing and Assigning Array Elements    233

8.1.3 Finding an Array’s Size    235

8.1.4 Comparing Arrays    235

8.1.5 Sorting an Array    237

8.1.6 Selecting from an Array by Criteria    240

8.1.7 Using Specialized Indexing Functions    242

8.1.8 Implementing a Sparse Matrix    244

8.1.9 Using Arrays as Mathematical Sets    244

8.1.10 Randomizing an Array    248

8.1.11 Using Multidimensional Arrays    249

8.1.12 Finding Elements in One Array But Not Another    250

8.1.13 Transforming or Mapping Arrays    250

8.1.14 Removing nil Values from an Array    251

8.1.15 Removing Specific Array Elements    251

8.1.16 Concatenating and Appending onto Arrays    253

8.1.17 Using an Array as a Stack or Queue    254

8.1.18 Iterating over an Array    254

8.1.19 Interposing Delimiters to Form a String    255

8.1.20 Reversing an Array    256

8.1.21 Removing Duplicate Elements from an Array    256

8.1.22 Interleaving Arrays    256

8.1.23 Counting Frequency of Values in an Array    257

8.1.24 Inverting an Array to Form a Hash    257

8.1.25 Synchronized Sorting of Multiple Arrays    258

8.1.26 Establishing a Default Value for New Array Elements    259

8.2 Working with Hashes    260

8.2.1 Creating a New Hash    260

8.2.2 Specifying a Default Value for a Hash    261

8.2.3 Accessing and Adding Key-Value Pairs    262

8.2.4 Deleting Key-Value Pairs    264

8.2.5 Iterating Over a Hash    264

8.2.6 Inverting a Hash    265

8.2.7 Detecting Keys and Values in a Hash    265

8.2.8 Extracting Hashes into Arrays    266

8.2.9 Selecting Key-Value Pairs by Criteria    266

8.2.10 Sorting a Hash    267

8.2.11 Merging Two Hashes    268

8.2.12 Creating a Hash from an Array    268

8.2.13 Finding Difference or Intersection of Hash Keys    268

8.2.14 Using a Hash as a Sparse Matrix    269

8.2.15 Implementing a Hash with Duplicate Keys    270

8.2.16 Other Hash Operations    273

8.3 Enumerables in General    273

8.3.1 The inject Method    274

8.3.2 Using Quantifiers    275

8.3.3 The partition Method    276

8.3.4 Iterating by Groups    277

8.3.5 Converting to Arrays or Sets    278

8.3.6 Using Enumerator Objects    278

8.4 More on Enumerables    280

8.4.1 Searching and Selecting    280

8.4.2 Counting and Comparing    281

8.4.3 Iterating    282

8.4.4 Extracting and Converting    283

8.4.5 Lazy Enumerators    284

8.5 Conclusion    285

9  More Advanced Data Structures    287

9.1 Working with Sets    288

9.1.1 Simple Set Operations    288

9.1.2 More Advanced Set Operations    290

9.2 Working with Stacks and Queues    291

9.2.1 Implementing a Stricter Stack    293

9.2.2 Detecting Unbalanced Punctuation in Expressions    294

9.2.3 Understanding Stacks and Recursion    295

9.2.4 Implementing a Stricter Queue    297

9.3 Working with Trees    298

9.3.1 Implementing a Binary Tree    298

9.3.2 Sorting Using a Binary Tree    300

9.3.3 Using a Binary Tree as a Lookup Table    302

9.3.4 Converting a Tree to a String or Array    303

9.4 Working with Graphs    304

9.4.1 Implementing a Graph as an Adjacency Matrix    304

9.4.2 Determining Whether a Graph Is Fully Connected    307

9.4.3 Determining Whether a Graph Has an Euler Circuit    308

9.4.4 Determining Whether a Graph Has an Euler Path    309

9.4.5 Graph Tools in Ruby    310

9.5 Conclusion    310

10  I/O and Data Storage    311

10.1 Working with Files and Directories    313

10.1.1 Opening and Closing Files    313

10.1.2 Updating a File    314

10.1.3 Appending to a File    315

10.1.4 Random Access to Files    315

10.1.5 Working with Binary Files    316

10.1.6 Locking Files    318

10.1.7 Performing Simple I/O    318

10.1.8 Performing Buffered and Unbuffered I/O    320

10.1.9 Manipulating File Ownership and Permissions    321

10.1.10 Retrieving and Setting Timestamp Information    323

10.1.11 Checking File Existence and Size    325

10.1.12 Checking Special File Characteristics    326

10.1.13 Working with Pipes    328

10.1.14 Performing Special I/O Operations    329

10.1.15 Using Nonblocking I/O    330

10.1.16 Using readpartial    331

10.1.17 Manipulating Pathnames    331

10.1.18 Using the Pathname Class    333

10.1.19 Command-Level File Manipulation    334

10.1.20 Grabbing Characters from the Keyboard    336

10.1.21 Reading an Entire File into Memory    336

10.1.22 Iterating Over a File by Lines    337

10.1.23 Iterating Over a File by Byte or Character    337

10.1.24 Treating a String As a File    338

10.1.25 Copying a Stream    339

10.1.26 Working with Character Encodings    339

10.1.27 Reading Data Embedded in a Program    339

10.1.28 Reading Program Source    340

10.1.29 Working with Temporary Files    340

10.1.30 Changing and Setting the Current Directory    341

10.1.31 Changing the Current Root    342

10.1.32 Iterating Over Directory Entries    342

10.1.33 Getting a List of Directory Entries    342

10.1.34 Creating a Chain of Directories    342

10.1.35 Deleting a Directory Recursively    343

10.1.36 Finding Files and Directories    343

10.2 Higher-Level Data Access    344

10.2.1 Simple Marshaling    345

10.2.2 “Deep Copying” with Marshal    346

10.2.3 More Complex Marshaling    346

10.2.4 Marshaling with YAML    347

10.2.5 Persisting Data with JSON    349

10.2.6 Working with CSV Data    350

10.2.7 SQLite3 for SQL Data Storage    352

10.3 Connecting to External Data Stores    353

10.3.1 Connecting to MySQL Databases    354

10.3.2 Connecting to PostgreSQL Databases    356

10.3.3 Object-Relational Mappers (ORMs)    358

10.3.4 Connecting to Redis Data Stores    359

10.4 Conclusion    360

11  OOP and Dynamic Features in Ruby    361

11.1 Everyday OOP Tasks    362

11.1.1 Using Multiple Constructors    362

11.1.2 Creating Instance Attributes    364

11.1.3 Using More Elaborate Constructors    366

11.1.4 Creating Class-Level Attributes and Methods    368

11.1.5 Inheriting from a Superclass    372

11.1.6 Testing Classes of Objects    374

11.1.7 Testing Equality of Objects    377

11.1.8 Controlling Access to Methods    378

11.1.9 Copying an Object    381

11.1.10 Using initialize_copy    383

11.1.11 Understanding allocate    384

11.1.12 Working with Modules    384

11.1.13 Transforming or Converting Objects    388

11.1.14 Creating Data-Only Classes (Structs)    390

11.1.15 Freezing Objects    391

11.1.16 Using tap in Method Chaining    393

11.2 More Advanced Techniques    394

11.2.1 Sending an Explicit Message to an Object    394

11.2.2 Specializing an Individual Object    396

11.2.3 Nesting Classes and Modules    399

11.2.4 Creating Parametric Classes    400

11.2.5 Storing Code as Proc Objects    403

11.2.6 Storing Code as Method Objects    405

11.2.7 Using Symbols as Blocks    406

11.2.8 How Module Inclusion Works    406

11.2.9 Detecting Default Parameters    409

11.2.10 Delegating or Forwarding    409

11.2.11 Defining Class-Level Readers and Writers    412

11.2.12 Working in Advanced Programming Disciplines    414

11.3 Working with Dynamic Features    416

11.3.1 Evaluating Code Dynamically    416

11.3.2 Retrieving a Constant by Name    418

11.3.3 Retrieving a Class by Name    418

11.3.4 Using define_method    419

11.3.5 Obtaining Lists of Defined Entities    423

11.3.6 Removing Definitions    425

11.3.7 Handling References to Nonexistent Constants    427

11.3.8 Handling Calls to Nonexistent Methods    429

11.3.9 Improved Security with taint    430

11.3.10 Defining Finalizers for Objects    432

11.4 Program Introspection    433

11.4.1 Traversing the Object Space    434

11.4.2 Examining the Call Stack    435

11.4.3 Tracking Changes to a Class or Object Definition    435

11.4.4 Monitoring Program Execution    439

11.5 Conclusion    441

12  Graphical Interfaces for Ruby    443

12.1 Shoes    4    444

12.1.1 Starting Out with Shoes    444

12.1.2 An Interactive Button    445

12.1.3 Text and Input    446

12.1.4 Layout    448

12.1.5 Images and Shapes    450

12.1.6 Events    450

12.1.7 Other Notes    451

12.2 Ruby/Tk    452

12.2.1 Overview    452

12.2.2 A Simple Windowed Application    453

12.2.3 Working with Buttons    455

12.2.4 Working with Text Fields    459

12.2.5 Working with Other Widgets    463

12.2.6 Other Notes    467

12.3 Ruby/GTK3    467

12.3.1 Overview    467

12.3.2 A Simple Windowed Application    468

12.3.3 Working with Buttons    469

12.3.4 Working with Text Fields    471

12.3.5 Working with Other Widgets    474

12.3.6 Other Notes    479

12.4 QtRuby    480

12.4.1 Overview    480

12.4.2 A Simple Windowed Application    480

12.4.3 Working with Buttons    481

12.4.4 Working with Text Fields    483

12.4.5 Working with Other Widgets    485

12.4.6 Other Notes    490

12.5 Swing    491

12.6 Other GUI Toolkits    493

12.6.1 UNIX and X11    493

12.6.2 FXRuby (FOX)    493

12.6.3 RubyMotion for iOS and Mac OS X    494

12.6.4 The Windows Win32API    494

12.7 Conclusion    494

13  Threads and Concurrency    495

13.1 Creating and Manipulating Threads    497

13.1.1 Creating Threads    497

13.1.2 Accessing Thread-Local Variables    498

13.1.3 Querying and Changing Thread Status    500

13.1.4 Achieving a Rendezvous (and Capturing a Return Value)    505

13.1.5 Dealing with Exceptions    506

13.1.6 Using a Thread Group    508

13.2 Synchronizing Threads    509

13.2.1 Performing Simple Synchronization    511

13.2.2 Synchronizing Access with a Mutex    512

13.2.3 Using the Built-in Queue Classes    515

13.2.4 Using Condition Variables    517

13.2.5 Other Synchronization Techniques    518

13.2.6 Setting a Timeout for an Operation    522

13.2.7 Waiting for an Event    524

13.2.8 Collection Searching in Parallel    525

13.2.9 Recursive Deletion in Parallel    526

13.3 Fibers and Cooperative Multitasking    527

13.4 Conclusion    530

14  Scripting and System Administration    531

14.1 Running External Programs    532

14.1.1 Using system and exec    532

14.1.2 Capturing Command Output    533

14.1.3 Manipulating Processes    534

14.1.4 Manipulating Standard Input and Output    537

14.2 Command-Line Options and Arguments    538

14.2.1 Working with ARGV    538

14.2.2 Working with ARGF    539

14.2.3 Parsing Command-Line Options    540

14.3 The Shell Library    542

14.3.1 Using Shell for I/O Redirection    542

14.3.2 Other Notes on Shell    544

14.4 Accessing Environment Variables    545

14.4.1 Getting and Setting Environment Variables    545

14.4.2 Storing Environment Variables as an Array or Hash    546

14.5 Working with Files, Directories, and Trees    547

14.5.1 A Few Words on Text Filters    547

14.5.2 Copying a Directory Tree    548

14.5.3 Deleting Files by Age or Other Criteria    549

14.5.4 Determining Free Space on a Disk    550

14.6 Other Scripting Tasks    551

14.6.1 Distributing Ruby Programs    551

14.6.2 Piping into the Ruby Interpreter    552

14.6.3 Testing Whether a Program Is Running Interactively    553

14.6.4 Determining the Current Platform or Operating System    554

14.6.5 Using the Etc Module    554

14.7 Conclusion    555

15  Ruby and Data Formats    557

15.1 Parsing JSON    558

15.1.1 Navigating JSON Data    559

15.1.2 Handling Non-JSON Data Types    560

15.1.3 Other JSON Libraries    560

15.2 Parsing XML (and HTML)    561

15.2.1 Document Parsing    561

15.2.2 Stream Parsing    564

15.3 Working with RSS and Atom    566

15.3.1 Parsing Feeds    567

15.3.2 Generating Feeds    568

15.4 Manipulating Image Data with RMagick    569

15.4.1 Common Graphics Tasks    570

15.4.2 Special Effects and Transformations    573

15.4.3 The Drawing API    576

15.5 Creating PDF Documents with Prawn    579

15.5.1 Basic Concepts and Techniques    579

15.5.2 An Example Document    580

15.6 Conclusion    584

16  Testing and Debugging    585

16.1 Testing with RSpec    586

16.2 Testing with Minitest    589

16.3 Testing with Cucumber    594

16.4 Using the byebug Debugger    596

16.5 Using pry for Debugging    600

16.6 Measuring Performance    601

16.7 Pretty-Printing Objects    606

16.8 Not Covered Here    608

16.9 Conclusion    609

17  Packaging and Distributing Code    611

17.1 Libraries and Rubygems    612

17.1.1 Using Rubygems    612

17.1.2 Creating Gems    613

17.2 Managing Dependencies with Bundler    614

17.2.1 Semantic Versioning    615

17.2.2 Dependencies from Git    616

17.2.3 Creating Gems with Bundler    617

17.2.4 Private Gems    617

17.3 Using RDoc    618

17.3.1 Simple Markup    620

17.3.2 Advanced Documentation with Yard    622

17.4 Conclusion    623

18  Network Programming    625

18.1 Network Servers    627

18.1.1 A Simple Server: Time of Day    627

18.1.2 Implementing a Threaded Server    629

18.1.3 Case Study: A Peer-to-Peer Chess Server    630

18.2 Network Clients    638

18.2.1 Retrieving Truly Random Numbers from the Web    638

18.2.2 Contacting an Official Timeserver    641

18.2.3 Interacting with a POP Server    642

18.2.4 Sending Mail with SMTP    644

18.2.5 Interacting with an IMAP Server    647

18.2.6 Encoding/Decoding Attachments    649

18.2.7 Case Study: A Mail-News Gateway    651

18.2.8 Retrieving a Web Page from a URL    657

18.2.9 Using the Open-URI Library    658

18.3 Conclusion    658

19  Ruby and Web Applications    661

19.1 HTTP Servers    662

19.1.1 A Simple HTTP Server    662

19.1.2 Rack and Web Servers    664

19.2 Application Frameworks    667

19.2.1 Routing in Sinatra    668

19.2.2 Routing in Rails    669

19.2.3 Parameters in Sinatra    671

19.2.4 Parameters in Rails    672

19.3 Storing Data    673

19.3.1 Databases    674

19.3.2 Data Stores    676

19.4 Generating HTML    677

19.4.1 ERB    678

19.4.2 Haml    680

19.4.3 Other Templating Systems    681

19.5 The Asset Pipeline    681

19.5.1 CSS and Sass    682

19.5.2 JavaScript and CoffeeScript    683

19.6 Web Services via HTTP    686

19.6.1 JSON for APIs    686

19.6.2 REST (and REST-ish) APIs    687

19.7 Generating Static Sites    688

19.7.1 Middleman    688

19.7.2 Other Static Site Generators    690

19.8 Conclusion    690

20  Distributed Ruby    691

20.1 An Overview: Using drb    692

20.2 Case Study: A Stock Ticker Simulation    695

20.3 Rinda: A Ruby Tuplespace    698

20.4 Service Discovery with Distributed Ruby    703

20.5 Conclusion    704

21  Ruby Development Tools    705

21.1 Using Rake    706

21.2 Using irb    710

21.3 The Basics of pry    715

21.4 The ri Utility    716

21.5 Editor Support    717

21.5.1 Vim    717

21.5.2 Emacs    718

21.6 Ruby Version Managers    719

21.6.1 Using rvm    719

21.6.2 Using rbenv    720

21.6.3 Using chruby    721

21.7 Conclusion    722

22  The Ruby Community    723

22.1 Web Resources    723

22.2 Mailing Lists, Podcasts, and Forums    724

22.3 Ruby Bug Reports and Feature Requests    724

22.4 IRC Channels    725

22.5 Ruby Conferences    725

22.6 Local Ruby Groups    726

22.7 Conclusion    726

Index    727

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