How to call shell commands from Ruby

This explanation is based on a commented Ruby script from a friend of mine. If you want to improve the script, feel free to update it at the link.

First, note that when Ruby calls out to a shell, it typically calls /bin/sh, not Bash. Some Bash syntax is not supported by /bin/sh on all systems.

Here are ways to execute a shell script:

cmd = "echo 'hi'" # Sample string that can be used

1. Kernel#` , commonly called backticks – `cmd`

   This is like many other languages, including Bash, PHP, and Perl.

   Returns the result (i.e. standard output) of the shell command.

   Docs: http://ruby-doc.org/core/Kernel.html#method-i-60

   value = `echo 'hi'`
   value = `#{cmd}`
   

2. Built-in syntax, %x( cmd )

   Following the x character is a delimiter, which can be any character. If the delimiter is one of the characters (, [, {, or <, the literal consists of the characters up to the matching closing delimiter, taking account of nested delimiter pairs. For all other delimiters, the literal comprises the characters up to the next occurrence of the delimiter character. String interpolation #{ ... } is allowed.

   Returns the result (i.e. standard output) of the shell command, just like the backticks.

   Docs: https://docs.ruby-lang.org/en/master/syntax/literals_rdoc.html#label-Percent+Strings

   value = %x( echo 'hi' )
   value = %x[ #{cmd} ]
   

3. Kernel#system

   Executes the given command in a subshell.

   Returns true if the command was found and run successfully, false otherwise.

   Docs: http://ruby-doc.org/core/Kernel.html#method-i-system

   wasGood = system( "echo 'hi'" )
   wasGood = system( cmd )
   

4. Kernel#exec

   Replaces the current process by running the given external command.

   Returns none, the current process is replaced and never continues.

   Docs: http://ruby-doc.org/core/Kernel.html#method-i-exec

   exec( "echo 'hi'" )
   exec( cmd ) # Note: this will never be reached because of the line above
   

Here's some extra advice: $?, which is the same as $CHILD_STATUS, accesses the status of the last system executed command if you use the backticks, system() or %x{}. You can then access the exitstatus and pid properties:

$?.exitstatus

For more reading see:

• http://www.elctech.com/blog/i-m-in-ur-commandline-executin-ma-commands
• http://blog.jayfields.com/2006/06/ruby-kernel-system-exec-and-x.html
• http://tech.natemurray.com/2007/03/ruby-shell-commands.html

The way I like to do this is using the %x literal, which makes it easy (and readable!) to use quotes in a command, like so:

directorylist = %x[find . -name '*test.rb' | sort]

Which, in this case, will populate file list with all test files under the current directory, which you can process as expected:

directorylist.each do |filename|
  filename.chomp!
  # work with file
end

Here's the best article in my opinion about running shell scripts in Ruby: "6 Ways to Run Shell Commands in Ruby".

If you only need to get the output use backticks.

I needed more advanced stuff like STDOUT and STDERR so I used the Open4 gem. You have all the methods explained there.

My favourite is Open3

  require "open3"

  Open3.popen3('nroff -man') { |stdin, stdout, stderr| ... }

Some things to think about when choosing between these mechanisms are:

1. Do you just want stdout or do you need stderr as well? Or even separated out?
2. How big is your output? Do you want to hold the entire result in memory?
3. Do you want to read some of your output while the subprocess is still running?
4. Do you need result codes?
5. Do you need a Ruby object that represents the process and lets you kill it on demand?

You may need anything from simple backticks (``), system(), and IO.popen to full-blown Kernel.fork/Kernel.exec with IO.pipe and IO.select.

You may also want to throw timeouts into the mix if a sub-process takes too long to execute.

Unfortunately, it very much depends.

I'm definitely not a Ruby expert, but I'll give it a shot:

$ irb 
system "echo Hi"
Hi
=> true

You should also be able to do things like:

cmd = 'ls'
system(cmd)

You can also use the backtick operators (`), similar to Perl:

directoryListing = `ls /`
puts directoryListing # prints the contents of the root directory

Handy if you need something simple.

Which method you want to use depends on exactly what you're trying to accomplish; check the docs for more details about the different methods.

This is not really an answer but maybe someone will find it useful:

When using TK GUI on Windows, and you need to call shell commands from rubyw, you will always have an annoying CMD window popping up for less then a second.

To avoid this you can use:

WIN32OLE.new('Shell.Application').ShellExecute('ipconfig > log.txt','','','open',0)

or

WIN32OLE.new('WScript.Shell').Run('ipconfig > log.txt',0,0)

Both will store the ipconfig output inside log.txt, but no windows will come up.

You will need to require 'win32ole' inside your script.

system(), exec() and spawn() will all pop up that annoying window when using TK and rubyw.

Not sure about shell commands. I used following for capturing system command's output into a variable val:

val = capture(:stdout) do
  system("pwd")
end

puts val

shortened version:

val = capture(:stdout) { system("pwd") }

capture method is provided by active_support/core_ext/kernel/reporting.rb

Simlarly we can also capture standard errors too with :stderr

You can use format method as below to print some information:

puts format('%s', `ps`)
puts format('%d MB', (`ps -o rss= -p #{Process.pid}`.to_i / 1024))