How do I write raw printer code to a windows printer share from ruby?

Question

Using java, minus the exception handling, it is as simple as

FileOutputStream ostream = new FileOutputStream("\\\\host\\share");
PrintStream printStream = new PrintStream(ostream);
printStream.print("HELLO PRINTER");
printStream.close();
ostream.close();

Answer 1

File.open("\\\\host\\share") do |f|
  f.print("HELLO PRINTER#{12.chr}")
end

Answer 2

While I've never tried to print from Ruby, and while I don't have a Windows machine available to test on, it would seem to me that you don't want to be using the File class, but instead the IO class. You can see its documentation here: http://ruby-doc.org/core/classes/IO.html. It looks like it actually has Windows specific options, so take a look and if it's not too helpful, let me know why.