ruby( function

ruby(

SOURCE

)

The ruby( function executes a ruby program and returns the result (stdout).

Parameters

This function has one parameter:

source – Ruby script (source code). Note: It is very convenient to use “pipe” delimiters for this parameter, for example |||script|||. This eliminates needing to worry about the delimiters that occur in the script itself.

Description

This function executes Ruby source code and returns the result. Here is a simple example.

ruby({puts "«timepattern(now(),'hh:mm am/pm')»" }) ☞ 8:45 PM

WARNING: Apple has stopped providing Ruby with macOS. If you are using a recent version of macOS, you will have to install Ruby yourself. See Scripting Language Configuration to learn how to do this.

Panorama formulas can be embedded in the Ruby source code using special tags. To embed a Panorama formula use

$«formula»$

The formulas are calculated in advance, then embedded into the source code as constants. For example, the formula $«2*3»$ will be embedded into the program as 6. The formula $«upper("hello world")»$ will be embedded as "HELLO WORLD". Note: You can embed database fields, global variables, fileglobal variables, and windowglobal variables into the formula, but local variables will not work. (You can, however, use local variables with the ruby statement.)

In the case of text formulas any special characters will be encoded as necessary for a proper Ruby constant. For example the formula $«{"}»$ will be embedded as "\x22".

To embed a Panorama formula with no quotes or translation use

^«formula»^

See Also

applescript -- executes an AppleScript.
applescript( -- executes AppleScript source code and returns the result.
blindposixscript( -- executes a POSIX shell script using NSTask and returns the process id.
executeapplescript -- compiles and runs an AppleScript.
executeperlscript -- executes Perl code.
executesudounix -- executes a UNIX shell command using *sudo* (root) privileges.
executeunix -- executes a UNIX shell command.
perl -- executes a Perl script (program).
perl( -- executes a perl program and returns the result (stdout).
php -- executes a PHP script (program).
php( -- executes a PHP program and returns the result.
posixscript( -- executes a POSIX shell script using NSTask and returns the result.
python -- executes a Python script (program).
python( -- executes a python program and returns the result (stdout).
ruby -- executes a Ruby script (program).
scriptbglog -- specifies a path/file for output from STDOUT from embedded programs run in the background (Perl, Ruby, Python, PHP).
Scripting Language Configuration -- configuring the scripting languages available to Panorama (Perl, PHP, Python and Ruby).
scripttimeout -- sets the maximum runtime allowed for an embedded program (AppleScript, ShellScript, Perl, Ruby or Python).
shellscript -- executes a UNIX shell script.
shellscript( -- executes a UNIX shell script and returns the result.
usebashprofile -- grabs the search path from the `.Bash_profile` file in the user's home folder, so that these paths will be used by scripting languages (*Ruby, Python*, etc.).
xcallbackurl -- performs an action in another application using the x-callback-url mechanism.

History

Version	Status	Notes
10.0	No Change	Carried over from Panorama 6.0.