From: "James M. Lawrence" <quixoticsycophant@...>
Date: 2008-12-19T10:54:46+09:00
Subject: [ruby-core:20676] Re: system() issues on Windows

I had assumed there would resistance to changing system(), as I can
see reasons for the existing behavior.

If you type x/y.exe in the cmd console, it will try to run x with
option /y.  One could argue that system() should be low-level and run
what is given verbatim.  (Incidentally, I did not initially see the
reason for this failure.  My spec grew as I looked for a pattern.)

For system("c:/x/y", "1"), where c:/x/y.exe exists but c:/x/y does
not, the failure could be justified on the grounds that since no shell
is invoked, no .exe search should take place.

Yet if the current behavior is kept, another almost-the-same
implementation of system() is needed for cross-platform use.