dazuma / blockenspiel

== Blockenspiel

Blockenspiel is a helper library designed to make it easy to implement DSL
blocks. It is designed to be comprehensive and robust, supporting most common
usage patterns, and working correctly in the presence of nested blocks and
multithreading.

=== Summary

Blockenspiel is a helper library providing several different strategies for
implementing DSL blocks. It supports both DSLs that take a block parameter
and those that do not. For example:

 # Call DSL block with parameter
 configure_me do |config|
   config.add_foo(1)
   config.add_bar(2)
 end
 
 # Call DSL block without parameter
 configure_me do
   add_foo(3)
   add_bar(4)
 end

To support the above usage, you can do this:

 # Implement DSL block methods
 class ConfigMethods
   include Blockenspiel::DSL
   def add_foo(value)
     # do something
   end
   def add_bar(value)
     # do something
   end
 end
 
 # Implement configure_me method
 def configure_me(&block)
   Blockenspiel.invoke(block, ConfigMethods.new)
 end

By default, Blockenspiel uses a mixin technique (proposed by the late Why
The Lucky Stiff) to support parameterless blocks without the complications
introduced by <tt>instance_eval</tt>. It supports nested blocks and
multithreaded access, and provides a variety of tools for handling the
typical issues you may encounter when writing DSLs.

For more detailed usage and examples, see
{Blockenspiel.rdoc}[link:Blockenspiel\_rdoc.html].

For an extended analysis of different ways to implement DSL blocks, see
{ImplementingDSLblocks.rdoc}[link:ImplementingDSLblocks\_rdoc.html].

=== Requirements

* Ruby 1.8.6 or later (1.8.7 recommended), Ruby 1.9.1 or later, or JRuby 1.2
  or later (1.4 recommended).

=== Installation

 gem install blockenspiel

=== Known issues and limitations

* Implementing wildcard DSL methods using <tt>method_missing</tt> doesn't
  work. I haven't yet figured out the right semantics for this case.
* Including Blockenspiel::DSL in a module is not yet supported, but this
  is planned in a future release.

=== Development and support

Documentation is available at http://virtuoso.rubyforge.org/blockenspiel/README_rdoc.html

Source code is hosted on Github at http://github.com/dazuma/blockenspiel

Report bugs on Github issues at http://github.org/dazuma/blockenspiel/issues

Contact the author at dazuma at gmail dot com.

=== Author / Credits

Blockenspiel is written by Daniel Azuma (http://www.daniel-azuma.com/).

The mixin implementation is based on a concept by the late Why The Lucky
Stiff, documented in his 6 October 2008 blog posting entitled "Mixing Our
Way Out Of Instance Eval?". The original link is gone, but you may find
copies or mirrors out there.

The unmixer code is based on {Mixology}[http://rubyforge.org/projects/mixology],
version 0.1 by Patrick Farley, anonymous z, Dan Manges, and Clint Bishop.
The code has been stripped down and modified to support MRI 1.9 and JRuby 1.2.
I know Mixology 0.2 is available, but I'm keeping the unmixer bundled with
Blockenspiel for now, to reduce dependencies.

=== License

Copyright 2008-2009 Daniel Azuma.

All rights reserved.

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

* Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice,
  this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
* Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice,
  this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation
  and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
* Neither the name of the copyright holder, nor the names of any other
  contributors to this software, may be used to endorse or promote products
  derived from this software without specific prior written permission.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS"
AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT OWNER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE
LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR
CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF
SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS
INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN
CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE)
ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE
POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.