Ruby plugin architecture

Question

I have to develop a plugin based software in ruby. What's the best architeture tu use?

I am thinking about plugin like this, each in a separate .rb file:

class MyPlugin < Plugin

def info
 infos
end

def run
 # run
end
end

How i can write a plugin manager to call these plugins?

You might also consider using `Module` s with `include` or `extend`. — jtbandes, Jul 25 '10 at 21:03
most ruby plugins come in the form of gems, check this tutorial out as a resource http://guides.rubygems.org/make-your-own-gem/, which also covers a conventional architecture. — random-forest-cat, Aug 20 '15 at 18:18

score 2 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 10:32

You'd have to clearly define what "calling the plugins" exactly mean.

For start, you can check out here how to require all the files from a directory, put your plugins into a single directory and require them all.

Then you need to somehow pick which one to use, whether it be:

passing its classname as a string through a command line argument or a config file parameter, and looking for a class by that name using const_get, or
presenting a user a list of all plugins (all descendants of your Plugin class) - check out here how to do it

Finally, you instantiate your plugin and do whatever you need to do with it.

1 Answers1