Mruby

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mruby
Developer(s)Yukihiro Matsumoto et al.
Initial releaseApril 20, 2012; 13 years ago (2012-04-20)
Stable release
3.4.0[1] Edit this on Wikidata / 20 April 2025; 7 days ago (20 April 2025)
Repository
Written inC and Ruby
Operating systemCross-platform
Standard(s)ISO/IEC 30170:2012
TypeRuby programming language interpreter
LicenseMIT License[2]
Websitemruby.org Edit this at Wikidata

mruby is an interpreter for the Ruby programming language with the intention of being lightweight and easily embeddable.[3][4] The project is headed by Yukihiro Matsumoto, with over 100 contributors currently working on the project.

Features

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mruby 1.0 supports the Ruby 2.1 core API, but none of the standard library. As well as being able to execute most basic Ruby code, mruby also features a bytecode compiler and virtual machine, as well as the ability to be easily embedded and integrated into C or C++ code, in a similar manner to Lua or Tcl.

mruby 2.0.0[5] adds support for several Ruby 2.x methods beyond Ruby 2.1. v2.0.0 also changed to variable length bytecode instructions format.

mruby bytecode can be embedded in C code, and thus, can be compiled into a standalone executable.[6]

mruby also aims[3] to be compliant with the ISO/IEC 30170:2012 standard.[7]

Examples

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Calling mruby from C

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#include <stdio.h>
#include <mruby.h>
#include <mruby/compile.h>

int main(void) {
    mrb_state *mrb = mrb_open();
    char code[] = "5.times { puts 'mruby is awesome!' }";

    printf("Executing Ruby code with mruby:\n");
    mrb_load_string(mrb, code);

    mrb_close(mrb);
    return 0;
}

Assuming that the mruby library and headers are installed, the program can be compiled and executed by running the following commands from the terminal:[8] 

$ cc example.c -lmruby -lm -o example
$ ./example

Precompiled Bytecode

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mruby includes a minimalistic virtual machine used to execute mruby bytecode, nicknamed RiteVM: 

$ mrbc test.rb
$ mruby -b test.mrb

The first command compiles Ruby code to mruby bytecode, creating a file called "test.mrb", which can then be executed by appending the "-b" flag to the normal interpreter arguments.[9]

References

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  1. ^ "Release 3.4.0". 20 April 2025. Retrieved 27 April 2025.
  2. ^ "LICENSE". Github. Retrieved 6 September 2019.
  3. ^ a b "mruby/mruby". GitHub. Retrieved 2018-04-30.
  4. ^ mruby and MobiRuby announced
  5. ^ "mruby 2.0.0 released". mruby.org. Retrieved 2019-04-01.
  6. ^ "Executing Ruby code with mruby". mruby.org. Retrieved 2019-04-01.
  7. ^ "ISO/IEC 30170:2012". ISO. Retrieved 2019-04-01.
  8. ^ Aimonetti, Matt (2012-04-25). "Getting started with mruby". Retrieved 2013-12-29.
  9. ^ geekmonkey (2012-10-30). "An introduction to Mini Ruby". Retrieved 2013-12-29.