From: Joel VanderWerf <joelvanderwerf@...>
Date: 2010-04-08T00:23:21+09:00
Subject: Re: Executing a program (a quick question)

Albert Schlef wrote:
> Hi!
> 
> I want to launch a program and I don't care about its return value or
> output. I also don't want it to block my ruby program.
> 
> On Linux I do this as follows:
> 
>   if !fork
>     system("xpdf /path/to/some/file")
>     exit!
>     # ... or exec() ...
>   end
> 
> But it doesn't work on MS-Windows... it complains that fork() isn't
> implemented.
> 
> So how do I launch a program on MS-Windows without it blocking me and
> without caring about its output and return status?

Thread.new do
   system("...")
end

This works on windows as well as platforms with fork.