Feature #4477
Updated by mrkn (Kenta Murata) about 12 years ago
=begin From documentation and common sense, I would expect that Kernel:exec and backtick (`) work for _all_ kind of system commands. This is currently not the case. ~$ cat test1 echo success ~$ cat test2 #!/bin/sh echo success ~$ chmod a+x test? ~$ ruby1.8 -e 'p `test1`' -e:1: command not found: test1 "" ~$ ruby1.9 -e 'p `test1`' -e:1:in ``': Exec format error - test1 (Errno::ENOEXEC) from -e:1:in `<main>' ~$ ruby1.8 -e 'p `test2`' "success\n" ~$ ruby1.9 -e 'p `test2`' "success\n" This problem has been reported before (#3856: strange Kernel#exec behavior with bash's source command). As a workaround, it has been suggested to append a semikolon to the system command: ~$ ruby1.8 -e 'p `test1;`' "success\n" ~$ ruby1.9 -e 'p `test1;`' "success\n" The report #3856 has been closed with the decision "not a bug". This I cannot accept. For many years, I got used to run system commands through `<cmd>`. When it failed, I spent painfully long time to search for a bug in my Ruby code and in the system command before I realized the problem was due to an unexpected restriction of Ruby's exec/backtick. =end