From: walter@...
Date: 2003-09-20T02:26:15+09:00
Subject: Re: fork not available?

Ok so I sent this out a bit too early.

after looking in the archives some more I see that fork and popen("-
") do not work with Windows.  I see ri does mention that IO.popen is 
Not available on all platforms, but it does not mention this for 
Kernel.fork.

I basically have some setup code,  then would like two separate 
threads (real threads or processes, unless someone can point me in a 
way to get around the blocking issues), and then join and perform 
some finishing code.

Currently the total process take about 20 hours.  I want to get it so 
that it can run in less than 12 basically overnight.  Do I have to 
split the parts up as separate programs and deal with the sharing of 
data on my own? 

any insight would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Walt


> I am running windows 2000 using the PragProgs install.
> 
> I have tried fork but get an unimplemented on this machine error.  I
> have tried this on multiple windows 2000 machines and get the same
> error.
> 
> I have tried IO.popen("-") but just get an error stating that "-" is
> not recognized.
> 
> I am trying to get a long running program to use 2 separate 
> processors. I have tried using Ruby's threads but the code is very
> database intensive and appears to block a lot so I do not see a speed
> improvement.  The code is separated enough that I should be able to
> cut the overall time significantly if I can get the 2 parts to run on
> separate processors.  
> 
> I am missing something stupid? Any thoughts?
> 
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Walt
> *****************************************************
> Walter Szewelanczyk
> IS Director
> M.W. Sewall & CO.        email : walter@mwsewall.com     
> 259 Front St.            Phone : (207) 442-7994 x 128
> Bath, ME 04530           Fax   : (207) 443-6284
> *****************************************************
> 
> 


*****************************************************
Walter Szewelanczyk
IS Director
M.W. Sewall & CO.        email : walter@mwsewall.com     
259 Front St.            Phone : (207) 442-7994 x 128
Bath, ME 04530           Fax   : (207) 443-6284
*****************************************************