From: Raphael Clancy <rafemonkey@...>
Date: 2002-02-24T07:01:38+09:00
Subject: NB: calling external programs in windows

This isn't ruby specific, but it might be of interest to people who a 
forced to work with windows... Windows9x and Windows2k (maybe XP too) have 
different default pathing information. Win9x searches the current directory 
by default, while Win2k does not. I recently sent out some software which 
used C++ mini-programs, which we located in the same directory, to 
comunicate with a dll. On my machine which is win98, %x{getdata.exe} worked 
like a champ. But on the Win2k machine, which was to host the application, 
The user would get "command not found". Replacing the command call with 
%x{./getdata.exe} fixed it right up. Not the most useful info, but knowing 
it ahead of time would have saved me from having to toubleshoot over the 
phone...

R.