mruby/mruby
Mruby
mruby is a lightweight Ruby interpreter designed to be embedded into C applications. It compiles Ruby source code into a compact, platform-independent bytecode that executes on a register-based virtual machine, and exposes a stable C API for host programs to initialize the interpreter, load bytecode, and invoke Ruby methods at runtime.
The interpreter distinguishes itself through a tightly coupled parser and compiler that performs lexical analysis, syntax parsing, and bytecode generation in a single pass without constructing an intermediate AST, minimizing memory overhead. It also includes a gems packaging system that organizes C extensions and Ruby libraries into versioned packages with metadata files for runtime loading and resolution, and a single-file build system that assembles all interpreter source and headers into one C file and one header for trivial integration into other projects.
The project covers the full pipeline of translating Ruby source into portable bytecode, packaging extensions as gems, and distributing a minimal runtime for resource-constrained environments. Its documentation and build surface are centered around the single-file library distribution, which simplifies inclusion in host projects without complex build steps.
