From: Chris McMahon <christopher.mcmahon@...>
Date: 2006-10-20T05:35:13+09:00
Subject: handle a pipe (|) character inside backticks?

I can't figure this out:

# ps efxl |grep "grep"
0     0  9095  2224  15   0  3684  672 pipe_w S    pts/1      0:00  |
    \_ grep grep...etc.

but in IRB:

irb(main):026:0> r = `ps efxl |grep "grep"`
=> ""
irb(main):027:0> puts r

=> nil
irb(main):028:0>

The problem seems to be with the pipe character |  but escaping it with
"\" has no effect.  
How can put a "|" inside my backticks?