When i run your program, i get the following output (on win2k):

$ENV{TYPE}='c:\my test\type me';
$new_debug_log='c:\my test\type me.bat';
$rc = system("\"$ENV{TYPE}\" \"$new_debug_log\"");
__output__
@echo off
@type %1
[download]

That seems right to me, type prints out the contents of the file, and that happens to be the contents of that file. I would probably use the q() command instead of escaping things.

$ENV{TYPE} = q("c:\my test\type me");
$new_debug_log = q("c:\my test\type me.bat");
$rc = system("$ENV{TYPE} $new_debug_log");
__output__
@echo off
@type %1
[download]

HTH

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