From: Yohanes Santoso <ysantoso@...>
Date: 2002-03-06T23:07:49+09:00
Subject: Improvement to system()

Hi,

I just got bitten by return value of system() because it does not
distinguish invalid command and error code resulted from executing
command.

irb(main):014:0> system "/bin/falsed" 
false
irb(main):015:0> system "/bin/false" 
false

Quickly, why did the first one returns false, and why did the second one
returns false?

Did you instantly catch the typo? Sometimes the command to be executed
is determined at some other place. Thus, if system(*cmd) returns
false, there's no easy way to determine why it fails.

A solution is to use File.stat.executable? But even directories are
executable.

Any better solution?

YS.