> I'm supposing the OP wants to know how to use system or `backticks` in Perl, because calling CLI programs directly is interwoven into bash

LanX, given your insightful "that's similar to how I migrated from Bash to Perl" reply to this node's "Perl" code:

system ('grep -l "DATAmessage.*3\.0" *.xml > 3.0_files_arraydata.txt')
+; 
system ("mv temp_3.0_files_onixarraydata.txt 3.0_files_arraydata.txt")
+;  
system ("cat *files_arraydata.txt > data2.txt");
system ("rm data2.txt");
[download]

it seems you would know. :-)

Once the OP posts the working bash script, I trust we could rewrite it in Perl a bit more cleanly than the above monstrosity.

See Also

• Unix shell versus Perl
• Troubleshooting and Logging/Debugging References

• hippo's classic poem: The wise coder
• useless use of cat and other awards

References Added Later

• Using system (); with Strawberry Perl by hadrons (2021) - seeks advice converting a Perl script heavy in its use of system to pure Perl
• how perl do 'envsubst' by vincentaxhe (2024) - converting a bash script using the Linux envsubst command to perl
• Commify function regex in Perl vs sed by harangzsolt33 (2025) - wants to port some Perl code to bash

• envsubst - Linux envsubst command (typically usr/bin/envsubst)
• GNU gettext envsubst - envsubst is part of the GNU gettext utilities
• How to substitute shell variables in complex text files (SO) - some examples using the Linux envsubst command
• SO question - first answer offers a crude Perl alternative to envsubst namely perl -pe 'while (my ($k, $v) = each %ENV) { s/\$$k/$v/g }'

Updated: many references were added long after the original reply was made

👁️🍾👍🦟

system is a tool, and like every tool it can be used for the better or for the worse.

I'm not a big fan of rules becoming dogmas.

Many modules on CPAN are just wrappers around system commands. I used one from corion at work wrapping 7zip.

We can't know how monstrous the OP's code is, we only know it would be easier to reply if he showed it.

At least this solves his "one line in bash" claim.°

Cheers Rolf
_{(addicted to the Perl Programming Language :)
see Wikisyntax for the Monastery}

Update

°) correction, he said "simple echo statement", which is still kind of a miracle. The appropriate command is logger as far as I can Google..

I don't advice doing any system echo ...