From: John Wheeler <wheelerwjx9@...>
Date: 2002-01-06T14:08:23+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:30331] Re: Need help understanding system() call

Phil,

Thank you for the suggestion.

Just earlier tonight I installed enough of cygwin to find that the ruby
intallation needed certain windows registry keys set to allow the cygwin
file system to operate.    I have posted an e-mail to
rubybook@pragmaticprogrammer.com suggesting that setting the registry keys
be added to the installer.

Thanks again,

John

----- Original Message -----
From: "Phil Tomson" <ptkwt@shell1.aracnet.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ruby
To: "ruby-talk ML" <ruby-talk@ruby-lang.org>; <undisclosed-recipients:>
Sent: Saturday, January 05, 2002 7:14 PM
Subject: [ruby-talk:30318] Re: Need help understanding system() call


> In article <002401c195a0$78391f40$0301a8c0@inf>,
> John Wheeler <wheelerwjx9@netexpress.net> wrote:
> >This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
> >
> >------=_NextPart_000_0021_01C1956E.2A72EAC0
> >Content-Type: text/plain;
> > charset="iso-8859-1"
> >Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
> >
> >I have a quick question for anyone willing to help out a newbie:=20
> >
> >Does the Windows ruby installation package "ruby165-0.exe" from=20
> >rubycentral.com expect the user to be also running the cygwin
> >environment to be able to do a system() call?
> >
> >I just installed the ruby165-0.exe package on a machine that has
> >Windows98 and the DJGPP environment installed.  I have found that some
> >scripts that use the system() call do not seem to function correctly.
>
> I experienced this same problem today: I was helping someone setup Ruby
> and my task distribution system (Distributor) today on their Windows PC
> which does not have cygwin installed.  Some of the code specific to their
> application uses system calls.  While it worked fine on my Laptop (with
> cygwin installed) it did not work in their environment without cygwin.
>
> I worked around it by definging a 'win_system' routine that uses the
> 'system' in the Win32API:
>
> def win_system(command)
>    Win32API.new("crtdll","system",['P'],'L').Call(command)
> end
>
> win_system("<some windows exe here>")
>
> I then replaced the system calls with win_system calls, it worked fine.
>
> ....and it was a lot quicker than downloading cygwin ;-)
>
> You could probably even do something where you check to see what platform
> you're running on and then define 'system' to call 'win_system' if you're
> on Windows, or you could even redefine 'system' in Kernal this way.
>
> Phil
>