Getting a return code from a perl script called via system()

c has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

I think the title, sums up this one. I have a CGI script that is calling another script via system(), specifically, my $ERR = system("/usr/bin/sudo /usr/local/nbin/verify.pl --username foo --password bar"). As you can guess, the verify.pl script verifies the provided password against the system password for the spec'd username. I use Authen::PAM for the process, and in the verify.pl script, I return the result

sub check_password {
  ## inquiry to PAM
  my $pamh = new Authen::PAM($service, $username, \&my_conv_func)
    or die "Error code during PAM init!\n";

  ## grab return from auth process. other than 0 equals failure
  my $answer = $pamh->pam_authenticate;

  return $answer;
}
[download]

However, it looks as though $ERR is always set to 0 since the system call is working.

How can I get the return from my verify.pl script to show up in the value of $ERR?

thanks! -c

Comment on Getting a return code from a perl script called via system() Select or Download Code

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Getting a return code from a perl script called via system() by Aristotle (Chancellor) on Dec 15, 2002 at 15:13 UTC
`exit check_password @foo;` and then `my $exit_val = $ERR >> 8;` See `perldoc -f system` Makeshifts last the longest.	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Getting a return code from a perl script called via system() by FamousLongAgo (Friar) on Dec 15, 2002 at 15:19 UTC
Why not use backticks instead of the `system()` call? Then you can get all the output the script generates: my $out = `script.pl --arg` [download] Better yet, break your verification code into a module, and use it directly from the CGI script.	[reply] [d/l] [select]