From: ptkwt@...2.teleport.com (Phil Tomson)
Date: 2001-01-07T01:40:07+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:8744] Backquotes `somecommand` don't work on Windows (bug)

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Using backquotes to run a system command and collect it's output does not
work in Ruby under windows - this is a bug.

I searched deja.com regarding this problem.  And there were several posts
that said that you have to append command.com /c such as:

`command.com /c ver`

Problem is that under NT I get:
MSDOS Version 5.005.00

Instead of:
Windows NT version 4.0

which is what I get when i type "ver" at the command line.

The problem I'm trying to solve is to determine what type of Windows is
actually running on the machine running the script - this is very
difficult given the current workings of the backquote operator in Ruby.

The supposed reason this doesn't work on Windows is given in a post by
Dave Thomas:

"The reason is that some DOS commands (such as 'dir' are implemented
within the command interpreter, rather than as external programs." 
   
OK, I don't want to sound like I'm saying that "Ruby should be just like
Perl", but in this case I think it should be.  In Perl I can write:

$result = `ver`;
print "$result\n";

And it runs just fine on the various Windows platforms, and on NT I get:

Windows NT version 4.0 

If they figured out how to get this to work in Perl, it should be doable
in Ruby.  I really think this should be fixed (and I really think its
possible to fix it).

Sorry if I sound a bit angry, but I've spent a few hours on this one.
I really intend my comments to be constructive - to help improve Ruby.

Thanks.

Phil