Would 'eval' work? Look up perldoc -f eval to see.

Update:

merlyn pointed out that I should be a little more helpful.

Here is the quick and dirty from the man page:

      eval EXPR

       eval BLOCK
               In the first form, the return value of EXPR is
               parsed and executed as if it were a little Perl
               program.  The value of the expression (which is
               itself determined within scalar context) is first
               parsed, and if there weren't any errors, executed
               in the context of the current Perl program, so
               that any variable settings or subroutine and
               format definitions remain afterwards.  Note that
               the value is parsed every time the eval executes.
               If EXPR is omitted, evaluates `$_'.  This form is
               typically used to delay parsing and subsequent
               execution of the text of EXPR until run time.

               In the second form, the code within the BLOCK is
               parsed only once--at the same time the code
               surrounding the eval itself was parsed--and
               executed within the context of the current Perl
               program.  This form is typically used to trap
               exceptions more efficiently than the first (see
               below), while also providing the benefit of
               checking the code within BLOCK at compile time.

               .....

               With an `eval', you should be especially careful
               to remember what's being looked at when:

                   eval $x;            # CASE 1
                   eval "$x";          # CASE 2
                   eval '$x';          # CASE 3
                   eval { $x };        # CASE 4
                   eval "\$$x++";      # CASE 5
                   $$x++;              # CASE 6

               Cases 1 and 2 above behave identically: they run
               the code contained in the variable $x.  (Although
               case 2 has misleading double quotes making the
               reader wonder what else might be happening
               (nothing is).)  Cases 3 and 4 likewise behave in
               the same way: they run the code `'$x'', which does
               nothing but return the value of $x.  (Case 4 is
               preferred for purely visual reasons, but it also
               has the advantage of compiling at compile-time
               instead of at run-time.)  Case 5 is a place where
               normally you would like to use double quotes,
               except that in this particular situation, you can
               just use symbolic references instead, as in case
               6.

The short of it is this: Any perl code 'eval'ed is interpretted. You will have to figure out which fits for you.

J. J. Horner
Linux, Perl, Apache, Stronghold, Unix
jhorner@knoxlug.org http://www.knoxlug.org/