From: RichardOnRails <RichardDummyMailbox58407@...>
Date: 2008-10-26T02:24:53+09:00
Subject: Open a MS Excel file from within Ruby

Hi.

I'm writing a small Ruby pgm to demonstrate that FasterCVS is a good
way to handle CSV data.

I put up a small CSV file and demonstrated the FasterCSV aspect.  I'd
like to precede that step by automatically bringing up the CSV file in
Excel. (I know I could bring it up manually, but I'd like a self-
contained demo for a computer-illiterate person.)

I've got "fn" set to a string which is the fully qualified name of the
CSV file.  I concocted the (failing) command:

SystemCommand.start("Excel", fn)

based on my interpretation of the RDoc for Shell::SystemCommand.  I
took a wild stabs to no avail at adding "require 'system'" and
"require 'shel'"

I'm running:
ruby 1.8.6 (2007-09-24 patchlevel 111) [i386-mswin32]
WinXP-Pro/SP3

TIA,
Richard