ruby--ruby/doc/standard_library.rdoc

= Ruby Standard Library

The Ruby Standard Library is a vast collection of classes and modules that you
can require in your code for additional features.

Below is an overview of libraries and extensions followed by a brief
description.

== Libraries

Abbrev:: Calculates a set of unique abbreviations for a given set of strings
Base64:: Support for encoding and decoding binary data using a Base64 representation
Benchmark:: Provides methods to measure and report the time used to execute code
CGI:: Support for the Common Gateway Interface protocol
CMath:: Provides Trigonometric and Transcendental functions for complex numbers
ConditionVariable:: Augments the Mutex class, provided by thread.rb
CSV:: Provides an interface to read and write CSV files and data
DEBUGGER__:: Debugging functionality for Ruby
Delegator:: Provides three abilities to delegate method calls to an object
DRb:: Distributed object system for Ruby
E2MM:: Module for defining custom exceptions with specific messages
English.rb:: Require 'English.rb' to reference global variables with less cryptic names
ERB:: An easy to use but powerful templating system for Ruby
FileUtils:: Several file utility methods for copying, moving, removing, etc
Find:: This module supports top-down traversal of a set of file paths
Forwardable:: Provides delegation of specified methods to a designated object
GetoptLong:: Parse command line options similar to the GNU C getopt_long()
IPAddr:: Provides methods to manipulate IPv4 and IPv6 IP addresses
IRB:: Interactive Ruby command-line tool for REPL (Read Eval Print Loop)
Logger:: Provides a simple logging utility for outputing messages
mathn.rb:: Deprecated library that extends math operations
MakeMakefile:: Module used to generate a Makefile for C extensions
Matrix:: Represents a mathematical matrix.
Monitor:: Provides an object or module to use safely by more than one thread
Mutex_m:: Mixin to extend objects to be handled like a Mutex
Net::FTP:: Support for the File Transfer Protocol
Net::HTTP:: HTTP client api for Ruby
Net::IMAP:: Ruby client api for Internet Message Access Protocol
Net::POP3:: Ruby client library for POP3
Net::SMTP:: Simple Mail Transfer Protocol client library for Ruby
Net::Telnet:: Telnet client library for Ruby
Observable:: Provides a mechanism for publich/subscribe pattern in Ruby
OpenURI:: An easy-to-use wrapper for Net::HTTP, Net::HTTPS and Net::FTP
Open3:: Provides access to stdin, stdout and stderr when running other programs
OptionParser:: Ruby-oriented class for command-line option analysis
OpenStruct:: Class to build custom data structures, similar to a Hash
PP:: Provides a PrettyPrinter for Ruby objects
PrettyPrinter:: Implements a pretty printing algorithm for readable structure
Prime:: Prime numbers and factorization library
profile.rb:: Runs the Ruby Profiler__
Profiler__:: Provides a way to profile your Ruby application
PStore:: Implements a file based persistence mechanism based on a Hash
Queue:: Synchronized communication between threads, provided by thread.rb
Racc:: A LALR(1) parser generator written in Ruby.
Rake:: Ruby build program with capabilities similar to make
RbConfig:: Information of your configure and build of Ruby
RDoc:: Produces HTML and command-line documentation for Ruby
resolv-replace.rb:: Replace Socket DNS with Resolv
Resolv::  Thread-aware DNS resolver library in Ruby
REXML:: An XML toolkit for Ruby
Rinda:: The Linda distributed computing paradigm in Ruby
RSS:: Family of libraries that support various formats of XML "feeds"
Gem:: Package management framework for Ruby
Scanf:: A Ruby implementation of the C function scanf(3)
SecureRandom:: Interface for secure random number generator
Set:: Provides a class to deal with collections of unordered, unique values
Shell:: An idiomatic Ruby interface for common UNIX shell commands
Shellwords:: Manipulates strings with word parsing rules of UNIX Bourne shell
Singleton:: Implementation of the Singleton pattern for Ruby
Synchronizer:: A module that provides a two-phase lock with a counter
Tempfile:: A utility class for managing temporary files
ThreadsWait:: Watches for termination of multiple threads
Time:: Extends the Time class with methods for parsing and conversion
Timeout:: Auto-terminate potentially long-running operations in Ruby
tmpdir.rb:: Extends the Dir class to manage the OS temporary file path
Tracer:: Outputs a source level execution trace of a Ruby program
TSort:: Topological sorting using Tarjan's algorithm
un.rb:: Utilities to replace common UNIX commands
URI:: A Ruby module providing support for Uniform Resource Identifiers
WeakRef:: Allows a referenced object to be garbage-collected
WEBrick:: An HTTP server toolkit for Ruby
XMLRPC:: Remote Procedure Call over HTTP support for Ruby
YAML:: Ruby client library for the Psych YAML implementation

== Extensions

BigDecimal:: Provides arbitrary-precision floating point decimal arithmetic
Coverage:: Provides coverage measurement for Ruby
Date:: A subclass of Object includes Comparable module for handling dates
DateTime:: Subclass of Date to handling dates, hours, minutes, seconds, offsets
DBM:: Provides a wrapper for the UNIX-style Database Manager Library
Digest:: Provides a framework for message digest libraries
Etc:: Provides access to information typically stored in UNIX /etc directory
Fcntl:: Loads constants defined in the OS fcntl.h C header file
Fiddle:: A libffi wrapper for Ruby
GDBM:: Ruby extension for the GNU dbm (gdbm) library
IO:: Extensions for Ruby IO class, including #wait and ::console
JSON:: Implements Javascript Object Notation for Ruby
NKF:: Ruby extension for Network Kanji Filter
objspace:: Extends ObjectSpace module to add methods for internal statistics
OpenSSL:: Provides SSL, TSL and general purpose cryptography for Ruby
Pathname:: Representation of the name of a file or directory on the filesystem
Psych:: A YAML parser and emitter for Ruby
PTY:: Creates and manages pseudo terminals
Readline:: Provides an interface for GNU Readline and Edit Line (libedit)
Ripper:: Provides an interface for parsing Ruby programs into S-expressions
SBDM:: Provides a simple file-based key-value store with String keys and values
Socket:: Access underlying OS socket implementations
StringIO:: Pseudo I/O on String objects
StringScanner:: Provides lexical scanning operations on a String
Syslog:: Ruby interface for the POSIX system logging facility
Thread:: Provides support classes for threaded programs
Tk:: Provides a framework for building a Graphical User Interface (GUI)
WIN32OLE:: Provides an interface for OLE Automation in Ruby
Zlib:: Ruby interface for the zlib compression/decompression library