in reply to Re^3: Newbie cmd prompt problem
in thread Newbie cmd prompt problem

When I typed perl and the file name the first time nothing happened. The second time i did it (right below the first time in the cmd window) it told me my code had errors (no surprise). So... the second time it ran obviously. It is a very weird problem I know. Even the teacher couldn't figure it out. Re: cmd window stays on my screen but I have to drag it into the window several times to get it to run. You must be a Mac user? This is a unique feature on the windows version of Perl. In the windows version you can have the folder open were the .pl file is and the cmd window open and drag the file from the it's location into the cmd window, press enter and have it execute it.

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Re^5: Newbie cmd prompt problem
by Anonymous Monk on Sep 11, 2013 at 23:55 UTC

    So... the second time it ran obviously.

    Maybe it also ran the first time, but the program is written in such a way to not print stuff to stdout

    You can try http://live.sysinternals.com/procexp.exe to see if the program really ran

    Or even try using depends.exe like this   depends.exe /c /f:1 /pb /ot:temp.txt ...perl.exe foo.pl ... to see if the program really ran the first time

    It is a very weird problem I know. Even the teacher couldn't figure it out.

    Doesn't sound too weird , just sounds like both you and the teacher are tired/confused/new

    Maybe your perl-installation is crippled. Long ago I downloaded a portable strawberryperl on WindowsVista(?) and windows wouldn't let me unzip it because of some malware protection feature ... or some UAC ...

    so maybe your user account isn't getting a UAC prompt on first run, but its running with lower privileges on the second run

    or maybe you got some kind of anti-malware/anti-spyware/or something that is interfering (unlikely but you can never tell)

    You must be a Mac user?

    I'm on windows. The things that show up in folders are called icons/files, they're not called windows ... now if you had said file-window it might be more obvious what you're talking about

    remember I'm not peeking over your shoulder at your monitor, so "the window" doesn't tell me what it is

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      You are correct about using proper terminology. My Mom calls me all the time and I have to figure out what she really means. Plus, I have been teaching software (including Windows) for 15 years, so I should know better! I did figure out the problem (I think) I had spaces in my file name and when I removed theme, it worked:-)Now I just have to figure out all of the errors in my code. I wish I was more left brained and less right brained... at least right now.
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        We've all been there :) talking to yourself out loud is a pretty good debugging technique :) 1 / 2

        In this list of links there are a few that discuss quoting command line arguments, super short version  perl "path with spaces yada da" ... when you drag/drop a file onto cmd.exe the resulting filename is usually quoted

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