On Jan 6, 2008 2:14 PM, JJ <jjnoakes / gmail.com> wrote: > exec("C:\\Program Files\\Anything\\Foo.exe"); Works just fine for me without the semicolon. > > Since this is a one-argument call to Kernel::exec, Ruby passes it to > the command interpreter, which tries to split the single argument on > shell meta-characters as it would for "echo *" or "ls -al". However, > "C:\\Program" is not the executable that we desire. > > In Perl, one can force the no-shell-interpreter path by calling exec > (and system) like so: > > my $cmd = "C:\\Program Files\\..."; > exec( { $cmd } $cmd ); > > Is there any such option in Ruby? > > -JJ I might not be understanding your situation, but on my windows system, this works fine... irb> s = "c:\\program files\\adobe\\acrobat 7.0\\reader\\acrord32.exe" => "c:\\program files\\adobe\\acrobat 7.0\\reader\\acrord32.exe" irb> `#{s}` => "" exec s also works but the irb process closes after that. Todd