A high performance implementation of the Ruby programming language. Built on GraalVM by Oracle Labs.
There are three ways to install TruffleRuby:
-
Via GraalVM, which includes support for other languages such as JavaScript, R and Python and supports both the native and JVM configurations. Inside GraalVM will then be a
bin/rubycommand that runs TruffleRuby. We recommend that you use a Ruby manager to use TruffleRuby inside GraalVM. -
Via your Ruby manager/installer (RVM, rbenv, chruby, ruby-build, ruby-install). This contains only TruffleRuby, in the native configuration, making it a smaller download. It is meant for users just wanting a Ruby implementation and already using a Ruby manager.
-
Using the standalone distribution as a simple binary tarball. This distribution can also be used for testing TruffleRuby in CI.
You can use gem to install Gems as normal. TruffleRuby currently requires
Bundler version 1.16.x.
You can also build TruffleRuby from source, see the building instructions, and using Docker
TruffleRuby aims to:
- Run idiomatic Ruby code faster
- Run Ruby code in parallel
- Boot Ruby applications in less time
- Execute C extensions in a managed environment
- Add fast and low-overhead interoperability with languages like Java, JavaScript, Python and R
- Provide new tooling such as debuggers and monitoring
- All while maintaining very high compatibility with the standard implementation of Ruby
There are two main configurations of TruffleRuby - native and JVM. It's important to understand the different configurations of TruffleRuby, as each has different capabilities and performance characteristics. You should pick the execution mode that is appropriate for your application.
When distributed as part of GraalVM, TruffleRuby by default runs in the native
configuration. In this configuration, TruffleRuby is ahead-of-time compiled to a
standalone native executable. This means that you don't need a JVM installed on
your system to use it. The advantage of the native configuration is that it
starts about as fast as MRI, it may use less memory,
and it becomes fast in less time. The disadvantage of the native configuration
is that you can't use Java tools like VisualVM, you can't use Java
interoperability, and peak performance may be lower than on the JVM. The
native configuration is used by default, but you can also request it using
--native. To use polyglot programming with the native configuration, you
need to use the --polyglot flag. To check you are using the native
configuration, ruby --version should mention Native.
TruffleRuby can also be used in the JVM configuration, where it runs as a
normal Java application on the JVM, as any other Java application would. The
advantage of the JVM configuration is that you can use Java interoperability,
and peak performance may be higher than the native configuration. The
disadvantage of the JVM configuration is that it takes much longer to start and
to get fast, and may use more memory. The JVM configuration is requested using
--jvm. To check you are using the JVM configuration, ruby --version should
not mention Native.
If you are running a short-running program you probably want the default,
native, configuration. If you are running a long-running program and want the
highest possible performance you probably want the JVM configuration, by using
--jvm.
At runtime you can tell if you are using the native configuration using
TruffleRuby.native?
You won't encounter it when using TruffleRuby from the GraalVM, but there is
also another configuration which is TruffleRuby running on the JVM but with the
Graal compiler not available. This configuration will have much lower
performance and should normally only be used for development. ruby --version
will mention Interpreter for this configuration.
TruffleRuby is actively tested on these systems:
- Oracle Linux 7
- Ubuntu 16.04 LTS
- Fedora 25
- macOS 10.13
Without these dependencies, many libraries including RubyGems will not work. TruffleRuby will try to print a nice error message if a dependency is missing, but this can only be done on a best effort basis.
You may also need to set up a UTF-8 locale.
We recommend that people trying TruffleRuby on their gems and applications get in touch with us for help.
TruffleRuby is progressing fast but is currently probably not ready for you to try running your full Ruby application on. However it is ready for experimentation and curious end-users to try on their gems and smaller applications.
TruffleRuby runs Rails, and passes the majority of the Rails test suite. But it is missing support for Nokogiri and ActiveRecord database drivers which makes it not practical to run real Rails applications at the moment.
You will find that many C extensions will not work without modification.
TruffleRuby should in most cases work as a drop-in replacement for MRI, but you should read about out compatibility.
For many use cases TruffleRuby should work as a drop-in replacement for JRuby. However, our approach to integration with Java is different to JRuby so you should read our migration guide.
Extensive documentation is available in doc.
doc/user documents how to use TruffleRuby and
doc/contributor documents how to develop TruffleRuby.
The best way to get in touch with us is to join us in https://gitter.im/graalvm/truffleruby, but you can also Tweet to @TruffleRuby, or email [email protected].
Announcements about GraalVM, including TruffleRuby, are made on the graal-dev mailing list.
The main authors of TruffleRuby in order of joining the project are:
- Chris Seaton
- Benoit Daloze
- Kevin Menard
- Petr Chalupa
- Brandon Fish
- Duncan MacGregor
Additionally:
- Thomas Würthinger
- Matthias Grimmer
- Josef Haider
- Fabio Niephaus
- Matthias Springer
- Lucas Allan Amorim
- Aditya Bhardwaj
Collaborations with:
And others.
See the security documentation.
TruffleRuby is copyright (c) 2013-2018 Oracle and/or its affiliates, and is made available to you under the terms of any one of the following three licenses:
- Eclipse Public License version 1.0, or
- GNU General Public License version 2, or
- GNU Lesser General Public License version 2.1.
TruffleRuby contains additional code not always covered by these licences, and with copyright owned by other people. See doc/legal/legal.md for full documentation.
TruffleRuby is a fork of JRuby, combining it with code from the Rubinius project, and also containing code from the standard implementation of Ruby, MRI.