I'm not sure about "real" sh implementations, but bash acting as /bin/sh requires that you export your environment variables in order for subprocesses to see them.

So your myenv.sh should end with

export blah balh3
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I hope this helps!

yep i was tring first this... but as i read more tha bash docs.. export-ed vars are seen only in child processes but my perl script is the parent what I mean :

#!/usr/bin/perl
qx{myenv.sh}
...more code...


see, the env is not seen..why I need shorter solution, 'cause this will be added to many scripts and I dont want to repeat alot of similar code ..

If the shell script that sets the variables is simple, then parsing that file is the best way to go. Substituting variable makes things a little harder but isn't too hard to accomplish in Perl. If it is more complicated than this, then it is best to let bash handle the shell scripts. Personally, I would have the config file be simple key=value format. It could be read by bash or perl, but would not be a proper shell script (no #!, no commands).

You can use bash to run the shell script, print the environment with printenv, and parse the results with Perl

#!bash
# myenvprint.sh
source myenv.sh
printenv
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#!perl
my $myenv = `myenvprint.sh`
my %env = parse_env($myenv);
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The simplest solution of all would probably be to roll the functionality of your shell scripts into you perl code.

If you can't do the above, then it may be that you're not familiar with (or haven't considered) piping, which might be a good choice for the other-than-environment-variables that need exported to your perl script.

If you are familiar with piping, please ignore the rest of this response. It's real newbie stuff.

There is a short tutorial on piping here.

As an example, lets say that your shell script outputs the lines:

fee
fi
fo
fum
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A perl script that is expecting piped input would look something like:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;

while (<STDIN>) {
  print uc($_);
}
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If I then 'piped' the output of my shell script into my perl script with a command like
giant.sh | caps.pl
my perl scipt, caps.pl, would print the following to STDOUT:

FEE
FI
FO
FUM
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This is a very trivial example. It would be much better to have your shell scripts print identifiers for each line so that there is no question about what line belongs to what other-than-environment variable.

You should check the node setting perl ENV from file.

Ummm, no. He said specifically that the perl script is the parent of the shell script, not the other way round.