From: David Masover <ninja@...>
Date: 2009-02-19T14:59:41+09:00
Subject: Re: Starting a process from inside Ruby

Petr Janda wrote:
> What I need to do
> is start the app, get its PID(to store it in a databasse), and move it
> to the background so the rails application doesnt hang.
>   

I think the other posts are right... If it's not part of your app, by 
the way, you could do:

pid = fork { exec('ezstream') }

Assuming 'ezstream' is the command you'd have to run.

> Any ideas?

Well, since you asked...

This problem has been solved over and over again in Rails. Look up 
workling/starling, nanite (or whatever it's called now), backgroundrb, 
drb,  monit, god, etc, ad nauseum.

I'm not saying that there's no possibility of doing it better -- I know 
I had a similar problem recently that I solved with an old-fashioned 
daemon and polling. Just probably worth looking at what's already out 
there before you reinvent the wheel.