Running External Commands

Anonymous Monk has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Running External Commands by Michalis (Pilgrim) on Jun 06, 2000 at 16:33 UTC
The best way (to my knowledge) to do that is to use backticks, assigning the result to a scalar (the output doesn't have to be a single line, or a single word or anything. For example: $result=`/bin/tail -15 /var/adm/messages`; [download] You should be very careful though, if you decide to pass to the command options from the user's input (for example through a CGI script). But that's a fact, either you use backticks or system.	[reply] [d/l]
RE: Re: Running External Commands by ivey (Beadle) on Jun 06, 2000 at 18:38 UTC
Since you've almost mentioned taint checking, I figured I'd jump in with a link to a taint checking FAQ. CGI/Perl Taint Mode FAQ Taint checking, for those that don't know, is how you solve the "be very careful" issue that Michalis mentioned.	[reply]
RE: Running External Commands by le (Friar) on Jun 06, 2000 at 14:00 UTC
system() doesn't gather the output of the executed program, it just returns the exit status. With backticks, you can collect the output. You could also open a pipe from a command: `open(PIPE, "command \|") or die $!; while(<PIPE>) { # ... do something }` [download]	[reply] [d/l]
RE: Running External Commands by merlyn (Sage) on Jun 06, 2000 at 21:41 UTC
The two most common ways are backticks (perldoc:perlsyn) or pipe-opens (perldoc:perlfunc). -- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker	[reply]
Re: Running External Commands by sh1tn (Priest) on Feb 24, 2005 at 11:50 UTC
You may want to see the following items: perldoc -f system perldoc -f exec perldoc -q command	[reply]