--- /dev/null	Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 1970 +0000
+++ b/graal/com.oracle.truffle.ruby.nodes/src/com/oracle/truffle/ruby/nodes/core/SystemNode.java	Mon Jan 06 17:12:09 2014 +0000
@@ -0,0 +1,69 @@
+/*
+ * Copyright (c) 2013 Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. This
+ * code is released under a tri EPL/GPL/LGPL license. You can use it,
+ * redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the:
+ *
+ * Eclipse Public License version 1.0
+ * GNU General Public License version 2
+ * GNU Lesser General Public License version 2.1
+ */
+package com.oracle.truffle.ruby.nodes.core;
+
+import java.io.*;
+
+import com.oracle.truffle.api.*;
+import com.oracle.truffle.api.frame.*;
+import com.oracle.truffle.api.nodes.*;
+import com.oracle.truffle.ruby.nodes.*;
+import com.oracle.truffle.ruby.runtime.*;
+
+/**
+ * Represents an expression that is evaluated by running it as a system command via forking and
+ * execing, and then taking stdout as a string.
+ */
+@NodeInfo(shortName = "system")
+public class SystemNode extends RubyNode {
+
+    @Child protected RubyNode child;
+
+    public SystemNode(RubyContext context, SourceSection sourceSection, RubyNode child) {
+        super(context, sourceSection);
+        this.child = adoptChild(child);
+    }
+
+    @Override
+    public Object execute(VirtualFrame frame) {
+        final RubyContext context = getContext();
+
+        final String command = child.execute(frame).toString();
+
+        Process process;
+
+        try {
+            // We need to run via bash to get the variable and other expansion we expect
+            process = Runtime.getRuntime().exec(new String[]{"bash", "-c", command});
+        } catch (IOException e) {
+            throw new RuntimeException(e);
+        }
+
+        final InputStream stdout = process.getInputStream();
+        final BufferedReader reader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(stdout));
+
+        final StringBuilder resultBuilder = new StringBuilder();
+
+        String line;
+
+        // TODO(cs): this isn't great for binary output
+
+        try {
+            while ((line = reader.readLine()) != null) {
+                resultBuilder.append(line);
+                resultBuilder.append("\n");
+            }
+        } catch (IOException e) {
+            throw new RuntimeException(e);
+        }
+
+        return context.makeString(resultBuilder.toString());
+    }
+}