From: "Jörg W Mittag" <Joerg.Mittag@...>
Date: 2008-01-26T09:39:58+09:00
Subject: Re: Parsing HTML / following links etc

Dan Cuddeford wrote:
> Stefano Crocco wrote:
>> In ruby, you can execute a command in a subshell using the system method 
>> or
>> the backticks (`) operator. This way, you can create a ruby script which
>> downloads what you need using wget, then goes on doing whatever you want 
>> with
>> those files. 
> 
>> `wget http://www.digg.com -r -l 2`
> How to I wack a variable in here? It doesn't seem to want a string :(

The backticks operator -- like most other operators in Ruby -- isn't
actually an operator, it's a method. In this case, it's a method named
'`' that lives on the Kernel module and takes a String as its
parameter.

So, `wget http://www.digg.com -r -l 2` is actually just syntactic
sugar for `("wget http://www.digg.com -r -l 2"). Well, except that's
not valid Ruby syntax. But this is: 

	send(:`, "wget http://www.digg.com -r -l 2")

So, now that you know that the argument *is*, in fact, a String, you
can probably guess what you can do with that String: String
Interpolation!

	`wget #{uri} -r -l 2`

jwm