From: Aleksei Guzev <aleksei.guzev@...>
Date: 2001-07-03T11:01:31+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:17173] Re: ` (back tick) on Win32 machines



# -----Original Message-----
# From: wjl@diggory.ee.byu.edu [mailto:wjl@diggory.ee.byu.edu] 
# On Behalf Of Wesley James Landaker
# Sent: 3 ???? 2001 ?. 2:09
# To: ruby-talk ML
# Subject: [ruby-talk:17168] Re: ` (back tick) on Win32 machines
# 
# 
# Stephan K�mper wrote:
# 
# > Hi all,
# >
# > I have the following problem both Win2K and Win98SE:
# >
# > On the Win2K box the following line works fine (and echoes 
# the name of 
# > the host)
# >
# > puts `hostname`
# >
# > But other commands like "dir", "cd" and the like don't 
# work... What I 
# > get is, eg.:
# >
# > C:\script.rb:1: command not found: dir
# >
# > with "script.rb" containing the line:
# >
# > puts `dir
# >
# > Strangely
# >
# > puts `dir *`
# >
# > doesn't complain about missing commands - but doesn't work either 
# > (that is nothing returned).
# >
# 
# The problem is that commands like "dir" and "cd" are not 
# programs, they are built-in shell commands in command.com. 
# When you run something with backticks, ruby is using the 
# stdlib call system(), which executes a program with arguments.
# 
# To get "dir", "cd", and so forth to work, you'll need to do 
# something like
# this:
# 
# puts `command /c dir`
# puts `command /c cd\\toast`
# 
# or whatever.
# 
# This isn't really a ruby thing, though. If you were writing 
# this in C, you'd have to do the same thing when calling the 
# system() command.
# 
# Nor is it totally a Windows/DOS thing, if you wanted to call 
# a built-in ksh function in unix in Ruby, you'd probably have 
# to do something like this if ksh wasn't your default shell:
# 
# puts `ksh -c some command`
# 
# Anyway, I'm writing this from a horrible mail client, so 
# forgive the strange formatting. (= Hope that you can get it working!

On my Win2k `dir` etc work fine.

# 
# --
# Wes Landaker - wjl@mindless.com
#