Options include:

• backticks or qx{} (see Quote and Quote like Operators);
• system;
• pipe, fork and exec;
• IPC::Open2;
• IPC::Open3;

and more. See perlipc for some important detail.

It's actually that I want to call the program, which will run and then create a file that I will process. Everything is done on Linux OS. So you think <system> is OK to go, right?

system is a good solution if the program should be blocking, you have no need to interact with STDIN/STDOUT/STDERR, and you don't need to worry about a timeout. Be aware that any STDOUT or STDERR the program generates will just get tacked onto your perl IO channels.

I'd recommend using a list-based call to avoid escaping complications (e.g. system($executable, @args);) but again, that's generic advice.

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#11929 First ask yourself `How would I do this without a computer?' Then have the computer do it the same way.

The answer to this will depend on how your Perl script needs to interact with the external program. Here's a non-exhaustive list of possibilities:

• You want to wait for the program to finish and check its exit status: system may be best.
• You want the output from the program: qx{...} (or `...`) may be the best choice — see perlop: Quote-Like Operators for details.
• You want control over how (one of) input or output is written to or read from the program: perhaps choose open with a mode of '|-' or '-|' — see perlipc: Using open() for IPC for more details.
• See perlipc for more complex scenarios, such as bidirectional and client/server communication.
• There are also many modules that may do exactly what you want, e.g. the built-in IPC::* modules.

If you provide a clearer picture of your requirements, we can provide a better answer.

Another useful option is the module Capture::Tiny, which combines with system to return the external programme’s exit status while also capturing its output to STDOUT and to STDERR. For example:

use Capture::Tiny 'capture';
...
my ($stdout, $stderr, $exit) = capture
{
    system($cmd, @args);
};
[download]

Hope that helps,

And those are recommended as step one before the next time you ask such an inspecific question.