Re: Re: Re: Re: system call in an CGI perl script, fails on Windows XP

Nope. We are dealing with two files here. First the parent perl file, say, x.pl and another perl file, say, t.pl, invoked from x.pl via 'system' call.

1) The browser is able to resolve the association of the parent perl file, ie, x.pl, to use the correct Perl interpreter, whereas not the one in the system within it, t.pl. I mean, system ("full_path/t.pl") would not work.

2) The parent x.pl has t.pl in its PATH (I tried printing the PATH variable in the html reponse), but still, something like 'system ("t.pl")' in x.pl will not work (only on XP) and I had to use the full path with the perl interperter in full-path in front it in the system call.

-sureshr

Comment on Re: Re: Re: Re: system call in an CGI perl script, fails on Windows XP

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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: system call in an CGI perl script, fails on Windows XP by Thelonius (Priest) on Sep 30, 2003 at 20:55 UTC
I'm not quite sure what you mean by "nope." When you run "x.pl", it is the web server (i.e. IIS or Apache or whatever) that determines how to run it. When x.pl calls system("t.pl"), then it is the command interpreter (CMD.EXE) that figures out how to run it. It's two separate programs which are configured separately, so the fact that "x.pl" runs okay just doesn't tell you anything about whether the system call will work. I can think of at least three conditions that need to hold for `system("t.pl")` to work correctly, over and above the condistions necessary for `system('c:\perl\bin\perl.exe \htdocs\cgi-bin\t.pl')`. Namely: t.pl has to be in the current directory or one of the PATH directories. The ASSOC/FTYPE association has to hold t.pl has to have Read & Execute allowed for the user under which the web user is running (which is different, in general, from the browser user None of these is a matter of Windows 2000 v. Windows XP, but a matter of individual file, directory, registry, and environment variables.	[reply] [d/l] [select]

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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: system call in an CGI perl script, fails on Windows XP
by Thelonius (Priest) on Sep 30, 2003 at 20:55 UTC

I can think of at least three conditions that need to hold for system("t.pl") to work correctly, over and above the condistions necessary for system('c:\perl\bin\perl.exe \htdocs\cgi-bin\t.pl').

Namely:

t.pl has to be in the current directory or one of the PATH directories.
The ASSOC/FTYPE association has to hold
t.pl has to have Read & Execute allowed for the user under which the web user is running (which is different, in general, from the browser user

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