in reply to Backward compatibility: $^O in perl 4

Why not just use 
$OS_TYPE=`uname -s`
$OS_VERSION=`uname -r

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Seems eaiser. Update: This way there are no special cases needed in the code.

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Special case! [was: Re: Re: Backward compatibility: $^O in perl 4]
by bronto (Priest) on May 08, 2003 at 09:01 UTC

    Actually there is at least one special case: AIX. AIX does it its own way: uname -r returns the minor version of the OS, while uname -v returns the major version; this is the output on AIX 4.3:

    bash$ uname -s
AIX
bash$ uname -r
3
bash$ uname -v
4

    [download]

    With your code the system will appear to have AIX 3 intead of 4...

    Ciao!
    --bronto

    The very nature of Perl to be like natural language--inconsistant and full of dwim and special cases--makes it impossible to know it all without simply memorizing the documentation (which is not complete or totally correct anyway).
    --John M. Dlugosz
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      Whoa. I have never caught that before, never had to worry about versions on AIX. Thanks, I will change my code accordingly. You Rock!
      Josh
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