Shell

See mentalized.net/journal/2010/03/08/5-ways-to-run-commands-from-ruby

Using backticks

This is the easiest way to run shell commands in Ruby.

`COMMAND`

e.g.

files = `ls`
# => "404.html\nCONTRIBUTING.md\nGemfile\nGemfile.lock"

puts files
# 404.html
# CONTRIBUTING.md
# Gemfile
# Gemfile.lock

files = split("\x0")
# ["404.html", "CONTRIBUTING.md", "Gemfile", "Gemfile.lock" ]

It is the lightest in syntax, compared with other programming languages. Not even any imports needed.

Use popen3

From gist.

require 'open3'

def run_command(cmd_text)
  Open3.popen3(cmd_text) do |stdin, stdout, stderr, wait_thr|
    exit_status = wait_thr.value
    if exit_status != 0
      puts stderr.read
      abort
    else
      puts stdout.read
    end
  end
end

From article.

require 'open3'

cmd = 'git push'
Open3.popen3(cmd) do |stdin, stdout, stderr, wait_thr|
  puts "stdout is:" + stdout.read
  puts "stderr is:" + stderr.read
end