MagLev Ruby VM Now Available, Brings GemStone's Persistence to Ruby

Posted by Werner Schuster on Nov 21, 2009

Community

Ruby

Topics

Performance & Scalability ,

Data Access ,

Runtimes ,

Database Design

Tags

Database ,

SmallTalk ,

Object Databases ,

GemStone ,

Data Storage ,

Database Management ,

MagLev

MagLev is a Ruby implementation built by GemStone on their Smalltalk VM. GemStone/S, which is GemStone's Smalltalk product, been around for decades and is particularly known for it's mature distribution and persistence capabilities.

MagLev was announced in 2008, and the team has been busy working on it ever since. After a while in a private alpha, the cat is now out of the bag: a public version of MagLev is now available, which includes the MagLev source code which is hosted at GitHub.

To try MagLev, first get the source with a quick

git clone git://github.com/MagLev/maglev.git

followed by a

./install.sh

in the MagLev source directory and follow the instructions it provides.

To start MagLev use

rake maglev:start

which fires up the system. A quick way to run Ruby code is maglev-irb, which will connect to the common MagLev backend;  maglev-ruby and maglev-gem are also available.

A quick dig around the examples directory brings up the hat_trick example that Avi Bryant showed at the first MagLev demo. It showed off the persistence features, which allowed to ѕet up an object in one irb instance and then access it in another.

To reproduce it, simply fire up MagLev and two maglev-irb instances. To make an object execute this in one maglev-irb instance:

Maglev.persistent do
 Maglev::PERSISTENT_ROOT[:stuff] = ["hello world"]
end
Maglev.commit_transaction

Switch over to the other maglev-irb instance and execute:

Maglev::PERSISTENT_ROOT[:stuff]

which will return the string "hello world".

Obviously, this is a very simple demo of the persistence features; for more details of MagLev's persistence API see the docs.

A more slightly involved example is an implementation of Ruby's PStore using the persistence features. It shows how GemStone's persistence features make it easy to keep whole object graphs persistent without having to deal with an ORM.

While Rails is not yet supported on MagLev, working Rack and Sinatra examples are available.

A public Trac for MagLev is available to track the progress. For compatibility, this graph hows the number of passed RubySpecs, whereas links to detailed results are available too.

No details about licensing seem to be available on MagLev, but GemStone does offer free versions, eg of GemStone/S that bundles the web framework Seaside and is free up to 4 GB of data.

While there's a lot of buzz around the NoSQL databases these days, GemStone/S is a mature solution that's been around for decades. MagLev now tightly integrates these features with Ruby. What's your take - will you try MagLev?

1. Back to top

   Re: MagLev Ruby VM Now Available, Brings GemStone's Persistence to Ruby

   Nov 23, 2009 6:11 AM by Conrad Taylor

   First, an easier way to implement the above example would be to do the following:
   
   replace
   
   

   
   Maglev.persistent do
    Maglev::PERSISTENT_ROOT[:stuff] = ["hello world"]
   end
   Maglev.commit_transaction
   

   
   
   with
   
   

   
   Maglev::PERSISTENT_ROOT[:stuff] = ["hello world"]
   Maglev.commit_transaction
   

   
   
   BTW, Maglev::PERSISTENT_ROOT Hash is the persistent root for objects within Maglev.
   
   Thus, in order to access a persistent object within the Maglev system, it needs to be reachable from
   
   this persistent root. A cool example of Maglev would be to create a module that can be included in
   
   our model(s) for enabling this persistent goodness. For example,
   
   maglev_model.rb:
   

   
   module MaglevModel
     
     # these methods will be defined as class methods of the class that
     # includes this module.
     module ClassMethods
   
       # returns an array of all the posts
       def all
   
         # set the values including its state to current for all persistent objects.
         # i.e. give me the current state of the last commit.
         Maglev.abort_transaction
   
         # retrieve all the Post instance as a collection hash.
         Maglev::PERSISTENT_ROOT[self].values
   
       end
   
     end
     
     # save current Post instance to the set of persisted objects.
     def save
     
       # store the current Post instance as a child of the Post class.
       Maglev::PERSISTENT_ROOT[self.class][self.__id__] = self
   
       # save the current state back to the repository.
       Maglev.commit_transaction
   
     end
   
     def self.included( klass )
   
       # create a space in the PERSISTENT_ROOT to hold persistent Post objects.
       # note:  the statement below refreshing our repository each time it's ran
       # but it's cool for something simple that's used for instructional purposes.
       Maglev::PERSISTENT_ROOT[ klass ] = Hash.new
   
       # stage the Post class for persistence.
       klass.maglev_persistable = true
   
       # stage the MaglevModel module for persistence.
       self.maglev_persistable = true
   
       # extend the Post class with the ClassMethods (i.e. after this statement is executed, the methods within 
       # ClassMethods module become class methods on our Post class.)
       klass.extend ClassMethods
     end
   
   end
   

   
   
   Now, let's create the Post model and this will be a snap because we have done most of the work by
   
   creating a reusable module, MaglevModel, for enabling persistence within the Post class:
   
   post.rb:
   

   
   require 'maglev_model'
   
   class Post
     
     # let's include our MaglevModel for enabling persistence within the Post class.
     include MaglevModel
   
     # let's create some accessors for the 
     attr_accessor :title, :description
   
     # initialize the Post instance.
     # note:  this instance method is called indirectly when the new class method is invoked.
     def initialize( params = {} )
     
       @title       = params[:title]
       @description = params[:description]
     
     end
   
     # output a string representation of this Post instance.
     def to_s
       "title => #{@title}\ndescription => #{@description}\n"
     end
   
   end
   Maglev.commit_transaction
   
   # let's create and save a couple of posts.
   post_one = Post.new( :title => "This is post 1", :description => "This is post 1 description." )
   post_one.save
   
   post_two = Post.new( :title => "This is post 2", :description => "This is post 2 description." )
   post_two.save
   
   # let's output all the persistent Post instances from the repository.
   Post.all.each { |post| puts post }
   
   

   
   
   Now, if we were to run the above code, one should see the following:
   
   

   
   $ maglev-ruby post.rb
   
   title => "This is post 1
   description => "This is post 1 description.
   title => "This is post 2
   description => "This is post 2 description.
   

   
   
   Now, you should have noticed in the above that there was no database schema, SQL, or other
   
   things that one would normally see in regards to setting up a relational database. Thus, the only
   
   thing that I needed to do was include the MaglevModel, and define an initialize and to_s instance
   
   methods on my Post class. That's all to it. BTW, MaglevModel module is a user created module and
   
   one can customize and name as necessary for your project. Lastly, if you're a Rubyist, then I would
   
   recommend taking a look Maglev.
   
   Happy coding,
   
   -Conrad

   Reply

2. Back to top

   Re: MagLev Ruby VM Now Available, Brings GemStone's Persistence to Ruby

   Nov 24, 2009 5:24 AM by Werner Schuster

   @Conrad: Great - thanks for the comment & sample.
   And I agree - it's great to see MagLev available to everyone;

   Reply

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