i'm assuming here that you actually want the output from the find command, and not the exit code. as your code is written, it will return the exit code.

below is some code that shows you the different ways of accomplishing your task.

#!perl -w
use strict;

my $file = 'c:\autoexec.bat';
my $pattern = 'PATH';
my $seperator = '----------';

print "\n---find 1: using system\n";
my $t=system("find /c \"$pattern\" $file") ;
print "->", $t, "<-\n";
print "\$t is the exit code\n";

print "\n---find 2: using `backticks`\n";
my $u=`find /c "$pattern" $file`;
print "->", $u, "<-\n";
print "\$u is the output\n";

print "\n---find 3: 100% pure perl\n";
open(FILE, "< $file") or die("ERROR: failed to open file, $!");
# $count is initialized to prevent print from complaining
# if no matches are found
my $count=0;
while( <FILE> ) {
    ++$count if /$pattern/;
}
close(FILE) or die("ERROR: failed to close file, $!");
print "->", $count, "<-\n";
print "\$count is the match count\n";
print " -or, if you really want the same output format as find-\n";
print "$seperator $file: $count\n";
[download]

the output is:

C:\WINDOWS\Desktop>perl test.pl

---find 1: using system

---------- c:\autoexec.bat: 6
->0<-
$t is the exit code

---find 2: using `backticks`
->
---------- c:\autoexec.bat: 6
<-
$u is the output

---find 3: 100% pure perl
->6<-
$count is the match count
 -or, if you really want the same output format as find-
---------- c:\autoexec.bat: 6
[download]

on my windows98 box.

~Particle