From: Wilson Bilkovich <wilsonb@...>
Date: 2007-09-27T10:16:22+09:00
Subject: Re: trouble with pathname (i.e slashes) & windows

On 9/26/07, dtown22@gmail.com <dtown22@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I am a bit of a ruby newbie, and i cant figure out this problem. I am
> recursively searching through some directories, and when i find the
> one i want, i try to pass it to an external process, through 'system'
> but the forward slashes screw things up.

Your best bet is probably to follow these rules:
1. Inside Ruby (meaning, anywhere but between two backtick characters
or in the 'system' method), always use forward-slashes.

2. When calling out to the system, do this:

class String
  def nightmareify
    self.gsub(/\//, '\\\\')
  end
end

irb> puts "c:/foo/baz".nightmareify
c:\foo\baz

Feel free to choose a different method name, depending on your level
of irritation at this:
http://blogs.msdn.com/larryosterman/archive/2005/06/24/432386.aspx