Have you searched CPAN through search.cpan.org for maybe the keyword wifi or wireless? If you had you would have found Wifi while its in early alpha stages and appears to have not been updated in a while you could help out and speed it along. You have to remember that CPAN authors are under no obligation to fit your schedule, and shouldn't be demanding when you can't find what you're looking for.

I'm sure someone can come up with high-minded reasons not to do this. But it works.

Backticks are for collecting the textual output of a program. The system() function is for executing something and getting a numeric success/fail/status result. Your example (syntax error aside) would decide that "no output" is an error, which may or may not be what you intended, but is not likely useful in the general case.

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[ e d @ h a l l e y . c c ]

The way that programs at the user's level can control the lower-level services available on a platform will vary GREATLY between different platforms.

On some platforms, every card is different, they have different command-line tools or names you must provide, and just enumerating the available network services is not trivial.

Deciding what interfaces are implemented with wifi and what is wired and what is going through a bluetooth or firewire bridge might even trip you up.

Due to the real nature of TCP/IP, there's no way to detect if a network interface is aimed at "the Internet" or not, until you're connected and you decide that contacting a known machine is sufficient proof for yourself.