From: Eric Schwartz <emschwar@...>
Date: 2003-11-25T04:32:13+09:00
Subject: Re: redirect stdout

"Mark J. Reed" <markjreed@mail.com> writes:
> Or, if you aren't invoking any processes external to ruby, you can leave
> STDOUT alone and just change $stdout:

Okay, this hints at the answer to a question I've been wondering about
for a while now: what's the difference between STDOUT/STDERR/STDIN and
$stdout/$stderr/$stdin?

It seems your message implies that STDOUT/STDERR/STDIN are IO objects
that when changed, the changes are passed on to children, but if you
change $stdout and friends, those changes are not passed on to
children.

If so, this confuses me greatly, since $stdout prints to stdout, and
if open filehandles (including the magic 3) are inherited by children
(as they are on most *nices), then how can I reopen $stdout without
changing stdout?  Why is there such a (to me) confusing and needless
distinction?

Of course, if I inferred incorrectly, disregard the previous
paragraph. :)

-=Eric
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