From: Robert Klemme <shortcutter@...>
Date: 2009-06-18T05:45:08+09:00
Subject: Re: launch external program

On 17.06.2009 16:02, Bertram Scharpf wrote:
> Am Mittwoch, 17. Jun 2009, 22:22:49 +0900 schrieb Christopher Carver:
>> On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 8:08 AM, Andrey Demidov <andrey.demidov@gmail.com>wrote:
>>>   I'm running external programs like this:
>>>
>>>      status = `rdesktop .... &`
>>>
>>>   But my ruby script doesn't work until the external program finished.
>>> How can I run an external program asynchronously?
>>>
>> system("command")

Christopher, system does not execute commands asynchronously.

>> You cannot save the output, though.
> 
> Yes, you can.

Obama? :-)

>   output = ""
>   t = Thread.new { output << `somecmd` }
>   ...
>   t.alive? or puts "The full output is:", output

You can do this as well:

t = Thread.new { `somecmd` }
...
output = t.value

It seems Thread#value is rarely used but it can be of very useful.

http://ruby-doc.org/core-1.8.7/classes/Thread.html#M000243

Kind regards

	robert

-- 
remember.guy do |as, often| as.you_can - without end
http://blog.rubybestpractices.com/