Publish `org.graalvm.ruby.launcher` as a Maven artifact

[sschuberth]

The background is this Slack conversation with @eregon: I'd like to use TruffleRuby to programmatically run CocoaPods (which is written in Ruby) from a Kotlin/JVM application. It seems the easiest way to do that would be by depending on a Maven artifact that includes org.truffleruby.launcher.RubyLauncher from my app, and then use that entry point to execute CocoaPods.

However, there currently is no Maven artifact that includes the org.truffleruby.launcher.RubyLauncher class. Thus my ask is to publish org.graalvm.ruby.launcher to Maven Central as well.

[sschuberth]

Looks like the GraalPy team does something similar already: https://mvnrepository.com/artifact/org.graalvm.python/python-launcher. I guess it makes sense to align here in terms of user experience.

[eregon]

Do you have an example CocoaPods command (and necessary files if any) that you would like to run so we can test if having that jar on Maven is enough or e.g. if CocoaPods needs a bin/ruby launcher to exist?

[sschuberth]

Some example commands are pod --version or pod repo add-cdn trunk https://cdn.cocoapods.org --allow-root.

[eregon]

FWIW I tried to install cocoapods with TruffleRuby jars on classpath and:

$ $ mx ruby_from_classpath --skip-build -S gem i cocoapods
Fetching nanaimo-0.4.0.gem
Fetching colored2-3.1.2.gem
Fetching claide-1.1.0.gem
Fetching CFPropertyList-3.0.7.gem
Fetching atomos-0.1.3.gem
Fetching xcodeproj-1.27.0.gem
Fetching ruby-macho-2.5.1.gem
Fetching nap-1.1.0.gem
Fetching molinillo-0.8.0.gem
Fetching gh_inspector-1.1.3.gem
Fetching fourflusher-2.3.1.gem
Fetching escape-0.0.4.gem
Fetching cocoapods-try-1.2.0.gem
Fetching netrc-0.11.0.gem
Fetching cocoapods-trunk-1.6.0.gem
Fetching cocoapods-search-1.0.1.gem
Fetching cocoapods-plugins-1.0.0.gem
Fetching cocoapods-downloader-2.1.gem
Fetching cocoapods-deintegrate-1.0.5.gem
Fetching ffi-1.17.2.gem
Fetching ethon-0.16.0.gem
Fetching typhoeus-1.4.1.gem
Fetching public_suffix-4.0.7.gem
Fetching fuzzy_match-2.0.4.gem
Fetching concurrent-ruby-1.3.5.gem
Fetching httpclient-2.9.0.gem
Fetching algoliasearch-1.27.5.gem
Fetching addressable-2.8.7.gem
Fetching tzinfo-2.0.6.gem
Fetching i18n-1.14.7.gem
Fetching connection_pool-2.5.3.gem
Fetching activesupport-7.2.2.1.gem
Fetching cocoapods-core-1.16.2.gem
Fetching cocoapods-1.16.2.gem
Successfully installed nanaimo-0.4.0
Successfully installed colored2-3.1.2
Successfully installed claide-1.1.0
Successfully installed CFPropertyList-3.0.7
Successfully installed atomos-0.1.3
Successfully installed xcodeproj-1.27.0
Successfully installed ruby-macho-2.5.1
Successfully installed nap-1.1.0
Successfully installed molinillo-0.8.0
Successfully installed gh_inspector-1.1.3
Successfully installed fourflusher-2.3.1
Successfully installed escape-0.0.4
Successfully installed cocoapods-try-1.2.0
Successfully installed netrc-0.11.0
Successfully installed cocoapods-trunk-1.6.0
Successfully installed cocoapods-search-1.0.1
Successfully installed cocoapods-plugins-1.0.0
Successfully installed cocoapods-downloader-2.1
Successfully installed cocoapods-deintegrate-1.0.5
Building native extensions. This could take a while...
ERROR:  Error installing cocoapods:
	ERROR: Failed to build gem native extension.

    current directory: /home/eregon/.cache/org.graalvm.polyglot/ruby/ruby-home/f1fe21562f21602e73bbd2b24ebc68e5028b9bc1a49fee5ca45f95d3724c528b827eb0db003d706fd5ae4c20e6032b616c1509c568f3c605c4a012a3657d48b2/lib/gems/gems/ffi-1.17.2/ext/ffi_c
/home/eregon/.cache/org.graalvm.polyglot/ruby/ruby-home/f1fe21562f21602e73bbd2b24ebc68e5028b9bc1a49fee5ca45f95d3724c528b827eb0db003d706fd5ae4c20e6032b616c1509c568f3c605c4a012a3657d48b2/bin/truffleruby extconf.rb
extconf failedcommand /home/eregon/.cache/org.graalvm.polyglot/ruby/ruby-home/f1fe21562f21602e73bbd2b24ebc68e5028b9bc1a49fee5ca45f95d3724c528b827eb0db003d706fd5ae4c20e6032b616c1509c568f3c605c4a012a3657d48b2/bin/truffleruby does not exist in PATH but posix_spawnp found it!

Gem files will remain installed in /home/eregon/.cache/org.graalvm.polyglot/ruby/ruby-home/f1fe21562f21602e73bbd2b24ebc68e5028b9bc1a49fee5ca45f95d3724c528b827eb0db003d706fd5ae4c20e6032b616c1509c568f3c605c4a012a3657d48b2/lib/gems/gems/ffi-1.17.2 for inspection.
Results logged to /home/eregon/.cache/org.graalvm.polyglot/ruby/ruby-home/f1fe21562f21602e73bbd2b24ebc68e5028b9bc1a49fee5ca45f95d3724c528b827eb0db003d706fd5ae4c20e6032b616c1509c568f3c605c4a012a3657d48b2/lib/gems/extensions/x86_64-linux/3.3.7.5/ffi-1.17.2/gem_make.out

FAILED (pid 135481 exit 1): mx ruby_from_classpath --skip-build -S gem i cocoapods

The error means installing gems with native extensions needs a bin/ruby launcher.

The gems could be installed via a TruffleRuby standalone as an alternative.

[eregon]

Installing via a TruffleRuby standalone works, e.g. via cd $HOME/tmp/cocoapods-gem-home && GEM_HOME=$PWD gem i cocoapods.
And then using it works:

$ GEM_HOME=$HOME/tmp/cocoapods-gem-home mx ruby_from_classpath --skip-build -S pod --version
1.16.2

pod (to show the help) and pod repo add-cdn trunk https://cdn.cocoapods.org --allow-root also work.

So at least these 3 pod commands don't need a bin/ruby launcher. but installing the gem needs it.