Ruby: irb doesn't work on Windows

Question

I\'ve installed Ruby 1.93 in my windows 7 PC using Ruby 1.9.3-p194 one click installer. I can use ruby command to interpret files, but when I type irb

Answer 1

I got the solution from Pete's comment. I have Cygwin installed in my computer which was causing the problem (Not sure why). I have just typed this in the command line: set HOME= and irb started working!

You can also see this link.

Answer 2

I'd suggest to use DevKit. I have 64-bit Windows 7 and ruby 1.9.3-p125, and everything works smoothly with DevKit.

d:\>systeminfo | findstr /B /C:"OS Name"
OS Name:                   Microsoft Windows 7 Enterprise

d:\>ruby -v
ruby 1.9.3p125 (2012-02-16) [i386-mingw32]

d:\>irb
irb(main):001:0> 2+2
=> 4
irb(main):002:0> exit

Answer 3

If you have problem to start IRB in Ruby 1.9.3 related to fiddle you can do this:

In rubyxxx\lib\ruby\site_ruby\x.x.x\rbreadline.rb replace:

This:

  require 'fiddle'
  class Win32API
    DLL = {}
    TYPEMAP = {"0" => Fiddle::TYPE_VOID, "S" => Fiddle::TYPE_VOIDP, "I" => Fiddle::TYPE_LONG}
    CALL_TYPE_TO_ABI = {:stdcall => 1, :cdecl => 1, nil => 1} #Taken from Fiddle::Importer

    def initialize(dllname, func, import, export = "0", calltype = :stdcall)
      @proto = import.join.tr("VPpNnLlIi", "0SSI").chomp('0').split('')
      handle = DLL[dllname] ||= Fiddle.dlopen(dllname)
      @func = Fiddle::Function.new(handle[func], TYPEMAP.values_at(*@proto), CALL_TYPE_TO_ABI[calltype])
    end

    def call(*args)
      args.each_with_index do |x, i|
        args[i], = [x == 0 ? nil : x].pack("p").unpack("l!*") if @proto[i] == "S"
        args[i], = [x].pack("I").unpack("i") if @proto[i] == "I"
      end
      @func.call(*args).to_i || 0
    end

With:

  require 'dl'
  class Win32API
    DLL = {}
    TYPEMAP = {"0" => DL::TYPE_VOID, "S" => DL::TYPE_VOIDP, "I" => DL::TYPE_LONG}

    def initialize(dllname, func, import, export = "0", calltype = :stdcall)
      @proto = [import].join.tr("VPpNnLlIi", "0SSI").sub(/^(.)0*$/, '\1')
      handle = DLL[dllname] ||= DL.dlopen(dllname)
      @func = DL::CFunc.new(handle[func], TYPEMAP[export.tr("VPpNnLlIi", "0SSI")], func, calltype)
    end

    def call(*args)
      import = @proto.split("")
      args.each_with_index do |x, i|
        args[i], = [x == 0 ? nil : x].pack("p").unpack("l!*") if import[i] == "S"
        args[i], = [x].pack("I").unpack("i") if import[i] == "I"
      end
      ret, = @func.call(args)
      return ret || 0
    end