Yes, my fsck-up. I forgot what you were doing for a minute when I saw backticks :) You may want to use a pipe, or look at perlsec to see how to safely emulate backticks with fork() and exec(). Now matter how you do it, good to look into all the other possibilities :)

Cheers,
KM

Re: A negative vote on this post
Why would someone vote negative on a post where there is not only a correction, but viable options for someone to learn with and raise thier clue factor? C'mon people. Unless you are giving good advice, think before you do this.