From: John Small <jsmall@...>
Date: 2000-12-28T11:23:26+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:8153] Kernel#system() questions

(I'm writing a cron.rb for windows using Ruby 1.6.2 compiled
for NT using VC++.)

Problem 1.  

I notice that if I use the "start" command inside system() it
returns false:

        system('start myBatchJob.bat')  =>  false

and doesn't run the batch job. Using back quotes works but
I don't want to capture the standard IO.

If I leave off the "start" it works:

        system('myBatchJob.bat')    => true

Please note that system waits for the command to complete before
returning.

Problem 2.

But even if I run system() inside a new thread all other
threads hang:

        Thread.new()  { system('myBatchJob.bat') }

just as if I weren't using a separate thread for the system() call.
Evidently a system call blocks the current process and not
just the current thread which is understandable.

I don't have fork() implemented on NT.

It there a way to the threaded version to work on NT?

John