October 2006
Intermediate to advanced
888 pages
16h 55m
English
Content preview from The Ruby Way: Solutions and Techniques in Ruby Programming, Second Edition
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14.1. Running External Programs
A language can’t be a glue language unless it can run external programs. Ruby offers more than one way to do this.
I can’t resist mentioning here that if you are going to run an external program, make sure that you know what that program does. I’m thinking about viruses and other potentially destructive programs. Don’t just run any old command string, especially if it came from a source outside the program. This is true regardless of whether the application is web-based.
14.1.1. Using system and exec
The system method (in Kernel) is equivalent to the C call of the same name. It will execute the given command in a subshell.
system("/usr/games/fortune")
# Output goes to stdout as usual...Note that the second parameter, ...
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O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.Julian F.
I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.Addison B.
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I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.