From: Cristi BALAN <mental@...>
Date: 2004-09-18T04:59:10+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby on WinXP (was Debugging wxruby programs.)

On Sat, 18 Sep 2004 01:39:51 +0900, Bill Guindon <agorilla@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, 17 Sep 2004 16:24:48 +0900, R. Cheung <cheungr@ecid.cig.mot.com> wrote:
> 
> > Without a DOS/Command window, firstly, I've no idea if it's a syntax
> > error, secondly, even if it does start, I can't use 'print' to print
> > out debugging statements to help me find out where I got to and what
> > went wrong (OK, I can open an auxilliary window and write to that, but
> > I could lose that window if the app dies). How do you experts debug
> > wxruby apps? Any help would be appreciated.
> 
> Yes, it's the old magic disappearing dos box... I went through that
> years ago when I first picked up perl, and recently repeated it when I
> decided to learn Ruby.
> 
> In the hopes of making it easier for other windows users to get up to
> speed, I've posted some suggestions for setting up WinXP as a Ruby
> friendly environment.
> 
> For now, it covers:
>  Customizing a command prompt for testing
>  Fixing the file text search on WinXP
>  Adding Ruby to your path
>  Making ruby scripts executable by name
> 
> The write ups are written at a beginner level, but some may be useful
> for more advanced users.  You can read them here:
> http://www.rubygarden.org/ruby?RubyOnWinXP
> 
> Please let me know if you see any errors, and feel free to add your tips.
> 
> --
> Bill Guindon (aka aGorilla)
> 
> 

I'm using the oneclick installer and it already sets .rb files to be
automatically ran. I also noticed it sets another thing beside what
you mention.
PATHEXT=.COM;.EXE;.BAT;.CMD;.VBS;.VBE;.JS;.JSE;.WSF;.WSH;.RB;.RBW


Also, from the cmd /? output, there is another (probably more cleaner)
way of setting startup options for every shell. Since if you start a
shell from some other app that doesn' use your shortcut you won't get
the environment you are used to, this probably covers more cases.
...
If /D was NOT specified on the command line, then when CMD.EXE starts, it
looks for the following REG_SZ/REG_EXPAND_SZ registry variables, and if
either or both are present, they are executed first.

   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Command Processor\AutoRun

       and/or

   HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Command Processor\AutoRun
...

But, I actually hate the cmd.exe and I use the unxutils package from:
http://unxutils.sourceforge.net/ 

and instead of the sh that comes with it i use the one from: 
http://winbash.tigris.org/servlets/ProjectDocumentList
Besides being bash, this also has the advantge that it works if
started on a UNC path, where cmd refuses to start unless you map the
path to a drive.

If you're feeling adventurous you can set the %COMSPEC% env var to
point to bash.exe instead of cmd.exe, but be prepared for some(a lot)
of applications crashing or not working as expected because of shell
escaping/spawning differences.

Also, as a speed enhancer, I use the wonderful total commander from
http://www.ghisler.com/ . If you are stuck with explorer.exe, there
are registry settings or apps that allow starting a shell from the
current directory or add a split with a shell in it below the files.

-- 
Cristi BALAN