execute shell command without wait? 1

[allywilson]

Hi,
I'm pretty new to using Ruby. As I'm still unfamiliar with of the libraries a lot of the time I just execute a shell command within it (e.g. whatever = `bash command`). This is fine for my purposes usually, but I'm coming across a difficulty whereby I'm unable to commence to the next command within the ruby script without waiting for the first to either timeout or return a result.

I've tried getting around it by introducing an "&" at the end of the shell command (not very good results...), but would rather do it in Ruby itself.

Can anyone advise how?

Any help much appreciated!

Thanks

 

[chipperMDW]

You probably want to look at using threads:

$ ruby <<EOF
> thread = Thread.new { `sleep 5; echo \"Done.\"` }
> puts "Waiting on the thread..."
> puts thread.value
> EOF
Waiting on the thread...
Done.

Check out the chapter on Threads and Processes in Programming Ruby (as well as the Thread class reference).

 

[allywilson]

You sir, are a life saver. That does seem to be the route I need to follow.

Thank you very much!