RuBLX: A Ruby-based batch language for Xgrid

We present a Ruby-based batch language for Xgrid and its processor. Xgrid is an environment for distributed and parallel computing on the Mac OS X operating system, and Ruby is an objectoriented programming language for general purposes. In the standard Xgrid environment, jobs in batch files are statically defined by an XML-based language, and submitted jobs are managed by their ID numbers. It is not easy for human to read and write XML-based batch files and to manage jobs by ID numbers. In our approach, jobs in batch files can be dynamically defined by a Ruby-based language, and submitted jobs can be managed by their logical names. Semantic checks and consistency managements are also done at submission in our approach. Our approach syntactically and semantically makes it easy to use Xgrid.