Hum ... do you want to call the system command "mkdir" ? or use the Perl function "mkdir()" ? your example seems to mix the call to the mkdir system command with the use of the mkdir function ...

If you want to call the system command /bin/mkdir with system() :

system( "mkdir", $NEW_AGENDA_ROOT ) == 0 or die( "Failed to create dir
+ectory $NEW_AGENDA_ROOT." );
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(see "perldoc -f system" for explanation on this construction)

If you want to use the mkdir() function then :

mkdir($NEW_AGENDA_ROOT, 0777) or die( "Failed to create directory $NEW
+_AGENDA_ROOT: $!" );
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(see "perldoc -f mkdir" for the mkdir function help)

By the way, you should use this mkdir() Perl function. It's the prefered way to make a directory from perl, as it's a builtin function available on all platform, and is much more secure than the use of a system call.

update: Removed the final "0777" argument on the system() call for the mkdir command as it won't set the access mode but simply create the directory "0777". (If you wants to set the access rights you can use the mkdir "--mode " switch). Thank you grantm for pointing me on this error.