IRuby is a Ruby kernel for Jupyter project.

You can try IRuby with a sample notebook on Binder (the same link as the banner placed above):

https://mybinder.org/v2/gh/RubyData/binder/master?filepath=ruby-data.ipynb

The following URL launches JupyterLab directly on Binder.

https://mybinder.org/v2/gh/RubyData/binder/master?filepath=../lab

• Jupyter

The following requirements are automatically installed.

• ffi-rzmq
• libzmq

The following dependencies are optional.

• Pry, if you want to use Pry instead of IRB for the code execution backend

See the official document to know how to install Jupyter Notebook and/or JupyterLab.

• https://jupyter.readthedocs.io/en/latest/install/notebook-classic.html
• https://jupyter.readthedocs.io/en/latest/install.html

sudo apt install libtool libffi-dev ruby ruby-dev make

gem install --user-install iruby
iruby register --force

The latest IRuby requires Ruby >= 2.4 while Ubuntu's official Ruby package is version 2.3. So you need to install Ruby >= 2.4 by yourself before preparing IRuby. We recommend to use rbenv.

sudo apt install libtool libffi-dev ruby ruby-dev make
gem install --user-install iruby
iruby register --force

sudo dnf install ruby ruby-dev make zeromq-devel

gem install --user-install iruby
iruby register --force

DevKit is necessary for building RubyGems with native C-based extensions.

gem install iruby
iruby register --force

Install ruby with rbenv or rvm. Install Jupyter.

gem install iruby
iruby register --force

If you are using macports, run the following commands.

port install libtool autoconf automake autogen
gem install iruby
iruby register --force

Try RubyData Docker Stacks. Running jupyter notebook:

docker run --rm -it -p 8888:8888 rubydata/datascience-notebook

You can use Java classes in your IRuby notebook.

• JRuby version >= 9.0.4.0
• iruby gem

After installation, make sure that your env is set up to use jruby.

env ruby -v

If you use RVM, it is enough to switch the current version to jruby.

If you have already used IRuby with a different version, you need to generate a new kernel:

iruby register --force

Be careful to use the development version because it is usually unstable.

If you want to install the development version of IRuby from the source code, try specific_install.

gem specific_install https://github.com/SciRuby/iruby

CZTop adapter has been deprecated since IRuby version 0.7.4. It will be removed after several versions.

If you want to use IRuby with CZTop, you need to install it and CZMQ.

If both ffi-rzmq and cztop are installed, ffi-rzmq is used. If you prefer cztop, set the following environment variable.

export IRUBY_SESSION_ADAPTER="cztop"

There are two backends: PlainBackend and PryBackend.

• PlainBackend is the default backend. It uses IRB.
• PryBackend uses Pry.

You can switch the backend to PryBackend by running the code below.

IRuby::Kernel.instance.switch_backend!(:pry)

Take a look at the example notebook and the collection of notebooks which includes a Dockerfile to create a containerized installation of iruby and other scientific gems. You can find the prebuild image at dockerhub.

Contributions to IRuby are very welcome.

To former contributors

In February 2021, IRuby became the canonical repository and is no longer a fork from minrk/iruby. Please fork from this repository again before making pull requests.

Copyright (c) IRuby contributors and the Ruby Science Foundation.

Licensed under the MIT license.