how to call ruby script from php?

Question

I am writing a Wordpress plug in php in and next step is some kind of add on to this plug in.

The add on would scrape data from web, sending forms etc. I have this

Answer 1

If i were you i would handle all the ruby stuff from the cron. Make a queue in the DB to hand user requests then make the script (in ruby?) invoked by cron grab all the unprocessed jobs from the queue and start running them, then remove the job from the queue (or set some kind of flag for it being done). This way you dont have to call exec which in most cases is going to be off limits unless the user is running on VPS/Dedicated server where they have root access.

You could also make this a seperate job and have it poll the DB for unprocessed jobs more regularly than the primary job... if necessary.

Still, this begs the question... why use ruby in a php blog/cms app??????