http://raa.ruby-lang.org/project/session/ http://www.codeforpeople.com/lib/ruby/session/

Session ::Sh ::Bash ::Shell ::IDL

Session::* offers a set of classes built upon Open3::popen3 for driving external progams via pipes. It offers a significant abstraction over Open3::popen in that the stdout/stderr of each command sent can be deliniated:

open3:

  i,o,e = Open3::popen3 '/bin/sh'

  i.puts 'ls'
  i.puts 'echo 42'

Now, how to determine the boundry between the output from ls and echo? the only (simple) way is start a process for each command:

  i,o,e = Open3::popen3 '/bin/sh'
  i.puts 'ls'
  i.close
  stdout, stderr = o.read, e.read

  i,o,e = Open3::popen3 '/bin/sh'
  i.puts 'echo 42'
  i.close
  stdout, stderr = o.read, e.read

sh = Session::new

stdout, stderr = sh.execute 'ls'
stdout, stderr = sh.execute 'echo 42'

Both stderr and stdout can be redirected, and the exit_status of each command is made available:

bash = Session::Bash.new
stdout, stderr = StringIO::new, StringIO::new

bash.execute 'ls', :stdout => stdout, :stderr => stderr
# bash.execute 'ls', 1 => stdout, 2 => stderr           # same thing
# bash.execute 'ls', :o => stdout, :e => stderr         # same thing

exit_status = bash.exit_status

A block form can be used to specify a callback to be invoked whenever output has become availible:

bash = Session::Bash.new

bash.execute( 'long_running_command.exe' ) do |out, err|
  logger << out if out
  elogger << err if err
end

Sessions are Thread safe (in the sense that they do not block on io operations) allowing commands spawned from guis to update widgets with output while running in the background.

button.configure 'action' => lambda do
  sh = Session::new
  sh.execute(cmd) do |o,e|
    out_widget.update o if o
    err_widget.update e if e
  end
end

see sample/*

• patches from @headius

• move to github

• added ability to specify stdin for Session::Bash and Session::Sh

        sh = Session::new

        sh.execute 'cat', :stdin => io
        sh.execute 'cat', :stdin => string
        sh.execute 'cat', :stdin => stringio

• fixed warning of @debug being un-initialized

• added a private munged version of Open3::open3. the builtin one causes the child process to become a child of init, this was very inconvenient because it was sometimes hard to crawl proces trees - the parent was lost. now the seesion is a child process that has been detached using Process::detach. this results in less suprising behaviour; for instance sending signal TERM to a process results in any sessions it had open dying as well. you can use Session::use_open3=true or ENV['SESSION_USE_OPEN3']='1' for the old behaviour if you need it.
• added Session::Bash::Login class. this class opens a session which has all the normal settings of a bash loging shell (.bashrc is sourced). this if often convenient as paths, aliases, etc. are set as normal.
• moved the Spawn module inside the Session module. Now the Session module is the namespace for everything so using session pollutes namespace less.

• fixed bug where setting track history after creation caused later failure in execute (@history =[] only in ctor). thanks leon breedt bitserf@gmail.com!
• updates to README
• included session-x.x.x.rpa file - thanks batsman batsman.geo@yahoo.com
• to_str/to_s/to_yaml for History/Command is now valid yaml (updated samples to reflect this)
• inspect for History/Command is now ruby's default

• greatly simplified read loop using two reader threads, one for stderr and one for stdout alongside a mutex to protect data. this streamlined the code alot vs. the old select method including allowing removal of the linbuffer class. the interface remains exactly as before however.

• improved thread safe non-blocking read method
• gemspec

• wrapped send_command in a Thread (send async) so output processing can commend immeadiately. this was o.k. before, but had strange behaviour when using popen3 from threads. thanks to tanaka akira for this suggestion.
• iff ENV['SESSION_USE_SPAWN'] is set Session uses Spawn::spawn instead of Open3::popen3. Also noted that spawn seems to be a bit faster.
• added tests for threads.
• run sh SESSION_USE_SPAWN=1 ruby test/session.rb to test using spawn
• added test for idl so it's test is not run if system doesn't have it, all that should be required for ruby test/session.rb should be sh'
• removed sample/tcsh and note about Tcsh and Csh in README - stderr redirection/separation is flaky in those shells

• added Session.use_spawn=, AbstractSession.use_spawn=, and an :use_session=> option to AbstractSession#initialize. If any of them are set the code uses Spawn::spawn to create external processes instead of Open3::popen3. Spawn::spawn uses named pipes (fifos) for IPC instead of forking and pipes. the fork used in popen3 can cause strange behaviour with multi-threaded apps (like a tk app). see source for details

• added Thread.exclusive{} wrapper when io is read to works in multi-threaded apps

ara.t.howard@gmail.com