backtick vrs native ruby

[Mark Probert]

Hi ..

In one of my apps, I am doing something like

def clean
f = `rm -f #{@datadir}/*.raw`
end

I could, just as easily do

def clean
Dir["#{@datadir}/*.raw"].each do |f| File.delete(f) end
end

Besides the portability aspect (does 'rm' exist on the box?), is one to be
preferred to the other?

Regards,

 

[Andre Nathan]

Hi Mark

Besides the portability aspect (does 'rm' exist on the box?), is one to be
preferred to the other?

I'd go with

require 'fileutils'
FileUtils.rm_f Dir.glob("#{@datadir}/*.raw")


Andre

 

[Stefan Schmiedl]

Hi ..

In one of my apps, I am doing something like

def clean
f = `rm -f #{@datadir}/*.raw`
end

I could, just as easily do

def clean
Dir["#{@datadir}/*.raw"].each do |f| File.delete(f) end
end

Besides the portability aspect (does 'rm' exist on the box?), is one to be
preferred to the other?

I'd go with the second one for everything that's not a one-time hack.
Depending on where the contents of @datadir originate, you might have
a security problem in the first method.

And you're starting an external process, which might become expensive,
if done often enough.

kind regards,
s.