Clasic ways to execute shell code in Ruby

Exec:

exec 'echo "hello world"'

exec ('echo "hello world"')

The System Command:

system 'echo "hello world"'

Will output “hello world” in the command window.

system ('echo "hello world"')

The system command can return a true if the command was successful or nill when not.

result = system 'echo "hello world"'
puts result  # will return a true in the command window

The backticks (`):

echo "hello world" Will output “hello world” in the command window.

You can also catch the result.

result = `echo "hello world"`  
puts "We always code a " + result

IO.popen:

# Will get and return the current date from the system
IO.popen("date") { |f| puts f.gets }

Found a mistake? Have a question or improvement idea? Let me know.

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