HI,

In message "[ruby-talk:13231] Running external command in sequential order"
    on 01/03/27, Paul Pladijs <ppladijs / cage.rug.ac.be> writes:

|The system method of the Kernel module creates a subshell,
|starts the requested command (= parameter of system method).
|After creating  the subshell, the following statements of
|the ruby script are executed. So, after invoking the system
|method, two processes (the ruby interpreter and the subshell)
|are running in parallel, at least in a multitasking
|environnement. (I hope this is correct)

system function in Ruby waits the process to terminate.  So it's just
like system2 you desired.

							matz.