backticks command just waits

troll314 has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Hi monks,

$mailstr = "$GETURL -d \"$SECURITY\" http://$SERVER$SUBSCRIPT?id=$code
+";
print "\n$mailstr\n";
$mail = `$mailstr`;
[download]

I am trying to get the contents of that file into the variable $mail

The print outputs

/usr/local/bin/urlget -d "username=matt&password=yeahright" http://mat
+t/functions/financial/templates/textinvoice.asp?id=GDI
[download]

If I take that and execute it on the prompt it returns the page on STDIO and finishes, no problem. However perl waits around indefinately until I press CTRL-D then continues

wtf

Comment on backticks command just waits Select or Download Code

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Re: backticks command just waits by dga (Hermit) on Aug 26, 2001 at 19:58 UTC
I think you will be happier with the LWP::Simple module available in CPAN to get http documents into your perl programs since it gives you better control of the process and also you can find out better what happened and you can set a timeout in case the remote site doesn't respond in time.	[reply]
Re: Re: backticks command just waits by troll314 (Initiate) on Aug 27, 2001 at 00:39 UTC
thanks for the idea. I will probably try that in the future.	[reply]
Re: backticks command just waits by troll314 (Initiate) on Aug 26, 2001 at 19:57 UTC
Ignore what I said... I'm just confused. It was another backticks command causing it to wait. viz. $FROMADDR = `sed -n s/[fF]rom://p`; lol	[reply] [d/l]
Re: backticks command just waits by jlongino (Parson) on Aug 26, 2001 at 20:46 UTC
Just a guess, but something is waiting for end-of-input which may be supplied by the Enter key from the prompt. I don't know if it will work or not, but you might try appending a `chr 10` or a `chr 4` to your command. E.g., `$mailstr .= chr 4;` [download] If the code and the comments disagree, then both* are probably wrong.* -- Norm Schryer	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Re: backticks command just waits by troll314 (Initiate) on Aug 27, 2001 at 00:41 UTC
thought about that too. i haven't tried it either but yeah it could work. I got it working now anyway. Just pulled out the sed call. It was there cos I was converting a bash script.	[reply]