How to make run external shell command in non-blocking mode in Ruby on Rails 3

Question

I should change to specific folder so that the output of the script can be exported into a file in that folder (123.txt in the example code below).

but this command, which I run from inside my ruby code

./iw2_broadcast.py

takes 5 minutes or more to complete. I try to append & to make it run in the background, but it seems it does not work.

Any ideas? Thanks

  Dir.chdir(@iw2_dir)
  ` ./iw2_broadcast.py -f 123.txt & `
  puts "123"

Siva · Accepted Answer · 2013-10-25 04:11:34Z

3

Create a shell script with the execution command

# py.sh
./iw2_broadcast.py

Execute the above shell script from ruby using system command

# ruby_script.rb
system("./py.sh")

Now your ruby code will be executed without waiting for the output

answered Oct 25, 2013 at 4:11

Siva

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Comments

Victor · Accepted Answer · 2014-12-16 20:05:02Z

1

Adding & works with system(). You can easily test it with:

system("sleep 1 &")

So for this precise example:

system("./iw2_broadcast.py -f 123.txt &")

answered Dec 16, 2014 at 20:05

Victor

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