- 1 year ago
Ruby open file name with spaces from the shell on Windows
In Ruby, when opening a file with spaces in the filename from the shell on Windows, you need to ensure that the filename is properly quoted. This is because spaces are treated as separators in command-line arguments, and quoting the filename ensures that it is interpreted as a single argument.
Here's how you can open a file with spaces in the filename from the shell using Ruby:
rubyfile_name = "path/to/file with spaces.txt"
# Using backticks (``)
output = `start "" "#{file_name}"`
# Using system command
system("start \"\" \"#{file_name}\"")
# Using exec command
exec("start \"\" \"#{file_name}\"")
Explanation:
The backtick (``) syntax allows you to execute shell commands from within Ruby. The
start
command is used in Windows to open a file with the default program associated with its file type. The empty double quotes""
afterstart
is necessary to provide a window title (an empty string in this case) as a placeholder argument.The
system
method in Ruby allows you to run shell commands, and we use it here with thestart
command as well. Similarly, we need to quote the filename properly to handle spaces.The
exec
method replaces the current Ruby process with the specified external command. Like withsystem
, we use thestart
command and properly quote the filename.
Note that in these examples, we assume that the file exists at the specified path. If the file doesn't exist or the path is incorrect, the operating system's default behavior will display an error message.
By properly quoting the filename with spaces, you can open files from the shell in a Ruby script on Windows without encountering issues due to spaces in the filename.