Dir.chdir does not work on windows (xp)

[Sathvik La]

Hi all ,

I am using Dir.chdir to change my current working directory.

class Test

def initialize
spin
end

def spin
dire = "/c/Target/tioga-1.11/samples"
dire2 = "c:\Target\tioga-1.11\samples"
Dir.chdir(dire2)
#system("cd", dire)
end

end

My original project inundates with errors
"The System cannot find the path specified"
& this test program says no such file or directory.
Even on MSYS Dir.chdir(dire) does not work !

There are other Dir routines like Dir.each() which gives the error

undefined method `each' for nil:NilClass [version: 1.11]

Can you please help me correct these errors.
--
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

[Ilias bankai]

Hi,

Try using double backslashes: "c:\\Target\\tioga-1.11\\samples"

Cheers,

[Luis Lavena]

Looks like you're using cygwin paths for a non-cygwin version of Ruby.

Mismatch those is not good, and that would be the reason you can chdir properly.

First check your ruby version (ruby -v) if it says "mswin32" or "mingw32", you should use drive letters.

---
frmsrcurl: http://compgroups.net/comp.lang.ruby/Dir.chdir-does-not-work-on-windows-xp

[Sathvik La]

Thank you for your replies.
Yes the Ruby version says i386-mswin32
and when I used "c:\\Target\\tioga-1.11\\samples" I could chdir.

I need to execute another program and parse the output. So I used
IO.popen
http://ruby-doc.org/core/classes/IO.html

pdflatex = "pdflatex"
@save_dir = "figures_out"
name = "red"
syscmd = "cd #{@save_dir} & #{pdflatex} -interaction=nonstopmode
#{name}.tex"
puts syscmd
IO::popen(syscmd, "r+")
puts $?

It does not work. pdflatex complains Invalid Argument. However when I
replace
IO::popen(syscmd, "r+") with system(syscmd) it does work but I cannot
read the output back.

Can you please tell me why does this happen OR a workaround to achieve
my goal.

====================================================
Here is the actual code

@measures = {}
IO::popen(syscmd, "r+") do |f|
#puts $?
f.close_write # We don't need that.
log = File.open(logname, "w")
for line in f
log.print line
if line =~ /^(.*)\[(\d)\]=(.+pt)/
n = $1
num = $2.to_i
dim = Utils::tex_dimension_to_bp($3)
@measures[n] ||= []
@measures[n][num] = dim
end
end
end