From: "Peña, Botp" <botp@...>
Date: 2008-07-23T12:55:12+09:00
Subject: Re: Backticks and timeouts

From: Allen Coley [mailto:databit@databit101.com] 
# The extent of my Ruby code is inside of RPG Maker XP (last 
# minute thing had like 1 day to show my idea) and when someone
# walks over a certain tile it executes
# result = `notepad.exe`
# That's it. Problem is RPG Maker then times out if I don't immediately
# close the notepad window. Is there any way to execute notepad.exe
# without actually expecting a result back? Just launch and forget about
# it?

try IO.popen. 

eg, try running the ff,

#--code
io1= IO.popen "notepad.exe"
5.times do puts "i am here" end
io2= IO.popen "notepad.exe"
5.times do puts "i am here again" end
#--code

the above will invoke 2 instances of notepad and also run the 2 loops (no pause there).

(note, you may also use win32ole w wsh if you want to fully control notepad[eg if you want to send keystrokes to it])

hth.

Kind regards -botp