From: James Britt <james_b@...>
Date: 2005-05-02T15:02:57+09:00
Subject: Re: Problem with Rake's RDoc task on Windows

Alexey Verkhovsky wrote:
> If you have ever wondered, why none of the rdoc tasks in any rakefile 
> ever work with your One Click Installer Ruby, here is the explanation.
> 
> c:\ruby\bin contains both 'rdoc' and 'rdoc.bat'. c:\ruby\bin is on the 
> system path.
> 
>  From Windows point of view, rdoc is not an executable. rdoc.bat is an 
> executable, but in its eternal struggle to protect the user from 
> himself, Windows doesn't notice that. 

Yet I can run

c:\> rdoc

and it works just fine, so Windows *does* know that rdoc.bat is an 
executable.

No struggle.

> Hence:
> 
> irb(main):001:0> `rdoc`
> Errno::ENOEXEC: Exec format error - rdoc
> ...
> irb(main):002:0> `rdoc.bat`
> ... works...
> 
> Unfortunately system 'rdoc ...' is exactly what Rake does. Not sure 
> where and how it can be dealt with. Can One Click Installer somehow cope 
> with it? Or can Rake invoke rdoc.rb directly, rather than via an 
> executable?

I believe this has been discussed here before, and the suggestion was 
made to have Rake just call into RDoc code directly, and avoid system 
calls entirely.


> 
> P.S. I am fully aware of the common opinion that the _proper_ workaround 
> is to ditch Windows. But circumstances force me :)

Well, think different. Use Windows.

James