have you really thought that properly?

(for the record: https://github.com/skade/rbtree/blob/master/dict.c )

Unless you can provide a stand-alone rbtree.c, I don't find adding all ruby dependencies a good idea. When you eventually have such C code, use Inline::C to prototype it. The difficult part would be to provide the perl-vars into the C functions. There's documentation and a lot of examples though, so just a matter of time and effort. I am sure you will have something going for scalars at least in short time. And take it from there. See also: Re^3: XS, raspberry pi, and a hundred bucks on how to use Inline::C to bootstrap an XS project. Please post here again when you have something more concrete, and/or msg me.

bw, bliako