From: evanm@...
Date: 2004-06-21T22:02:32+09:00
Subject: Re: Cleaning up IO#popen

Hey,

On Mon, Jun 21, 2004 at 11:34:53AM +0900, nobu.nokada@softhome.net wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> At Mon, 21 Jun 2004 06:06:02 +0900,
> evanm@frap.net wrote in [ruby-talk:104194]:
> > 
> > I think IO#popen could stand to be changed, and I wanted to run my ideas by
> > this list. Currently the problems with popen are:
> > 
> > * can't bypass the shell
> 
> In 1.9, it can as well as Kernel#system.

Really? I went and grabbed ruby-1.9-rodc-20040114.tgz to check it out, and
the docs say it's the same. Is there a better place to find this information?
Is the mode argument gone? Is the magic "-" value gone?

> 
> > While looking around for ways to improve on it I came across the Open3
> > module in the stdlib, which has a much more "ruby" interface. Based mostly on
> > that, I redid some methods that could replace IO.popen (and put popen3 in IO
> > at the same time, which is where it probably belongs)
> 
> I don't feel that Open3 is more ruby-like, but it's rather
> perlish.

To me, magic values in a string are hackish. popen('-') logically is and should
be an entirely separate function. I can't really comment on the new version of
popen that you're referencing as I can't find any information on it. How does
it work? What is its args? Does it drop the '-' and mode arguments?