From: "Carlo E. Prelz" <fluido@...>
Date: 2013-05-23T14:28:41+09:00
Subject: Re: newbie question on using system syntax versus backticks

	Subject: newbie question on using system syntax versus backticks
	Date: gio 23 mag 13 11:22:47 +0900
Sorry for the delay!

Quoting Thomas Luedeke (lists@ruby-forum.com):

> I keep running into this, and change my approach if undesirable effects
> are encountered.  But what I'd like to systematically understand is the
> difference between issuing a system command such as:
> 
>       system( "some_system_command" )
> 
> and simply doing it with backticks:
> 
>       `some_system_command`

There is one fundamental difference: backticks return the output of
the command, while system() lets the output be shown on screen (or
wherever your stdout/stderr point to) and returns true or false,
according to whether the command returned with a zero (success) or
non-zero (failure) status.

If you have

v1=`date`
v2=system('date')

v1 will contain something like "gio 23 mag 2013, 07.23.01, CEST\n",
while v2 will contain true. Apart from that, as far as I know the
command is executed in the same way.

Carlo

-- 
  *         Se la Strada e la sua Virtu' non fossero state messe da parte,
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