[ruby-talk:17309] Re: ` (back tick) on Win32 machines

Aleksei Guzev wrote:
> 
-----    8<    snipped a considerable amount of text from various
postings...
> # Stephan K舂per wrote:
> # > 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`
> # >

> # 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.

Hmmm. I'm still a bit (a byte to be true) puzzled. That's because it works
as (I) expected with Perl, eg

        print `dir`

works fine in the Perl flavour I use on both Win2K and Win98. And I wished
it'd be the same behaviour in Ruby. That would make migrating form Win98 to
Win2K (or vice versa) a lot more easy (No need to detect the Win flavour and
then chose cmd.exe or command.com respectively.)


> # 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`

OK. tried that, unfortunately 'dir' on its own work fine but beware if you
(read: I) add some args to dir ('*' or the like). No useful output.

> # 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`

I see. But then: How does Perl do it? (Note that I do not prefer Perl...)

> # Anyway, I'm writing this from a horrible mail client, so
> # forgive the strange formatting. (= Hope that you can get it working!

Looks OK for me. Didn't get it to work up to now though.

> 
> On my Win2k `dir` etc work fine.
> 

What Ruby version / installation do you use? The one from the pragmatic
programmers perhaps?

In the end: Could it be a user error? Am I probably doing something terribly
wrong?
If so, what could it be? Any help in sight?


Thanks again & happy rubying!

Stephan