«

$ cat write.rb
puts "ab\032cd"

$ cat execute.rb
print %x{ruby write.rb}

$ ruby execute.rb
ab
[I expected "ab→cd"]

$ ruby --version # I could reproduce with:
ruby 1.8.4 (2005-12-24) [i386-mswin32]
ruby 1.8.4 (2006-03-23) [i386-mswin32]
ruby 1.9.0 (2006-03-23) [i386-mswin32]

In comparison:

$ cat write.pl
print "ab\032cd\n"

$ cat execute.pl
print qx{perl write.pl};

$ perl execute.pl
ab→cd

$ perl --version
This is perl, v5.8.8 built for MSWin32-x86-multi-thread

-----

The following patch (against HEAD) solves this problem but might have unw=
anted
side-effects:

--- io.c.orig 2006-03-01 11:06:03.000000000 +0100
+++ io.c 2006-03-24 19:22:19.885940500 +0100
@@ -4380,15 +4380,15 @@
rb_f_backquote(VALUE obj, VALUE str)
{
volatile VALUE port;
VALUE result;
OpenFile *fptr;

SafeStringValue(str);
- port =3D pipe_open(1, &str, "r");
+ port =3D pipe_open(1, &str, "rb");
if (NIL_P(port)) return rb_str_new(0,0);

GetOpenFile(port, fptr);
result =3D read_all(fptr, remain_size(fptr), Qnil);
rb_io_close(port);

return result;