Get result STDOUT of exe into scalar/array instead of file

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

Is there an easy way to get the STDOUT of running an exe program in windows straight into a scalar or an array instead it being printed to the STDOUT or first write it to a file and then read the file. In the example below I will run a program lmutil.exe which will return something to the screen. I am able to send that to a file instead of to the screen but I also want to skip the file and get it straight into my code. Is this possible ?

system(($FindBin::Bin."\\lib\\lmutil lmstat -c $VALOR_LICENSE_FILE")."
+ > ".($FindBin::Bin."\\lib\\result.txt"));
[download]

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Re: Get result STDOUT of exe into scalar/array instead of file by Zaxo (Archbishop) on Jan 21, 2004 at 03:03 UTC
A piped open will do what you want, `my $result; { local $/; open my $exe, '-\|', $cmdstring or die $!; $result = <$exe>; close $exe or die $!; }` [download] Or else you can use backticks, my $result = `$cmdstring`; After Compline, Zaxo	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Get result STDOUT of exe into scalar/array instead of file by pg (Canon) on Jan 21, 2004 at 03:05 UTC
Update: Just to give an example of Open3: `use IPC::Open3; use strict; use warnings; my $pid = open3(\WRITER, \READER, \ERROR, "netstat"); while (my $line = <READER>) { print $line; } waitpid($pid, 0);` [download] Original* If you are running your program thru a shell that supports pipe (like win32, unix etc.), there is almost no extra coding on your side: `use strict; use warnings; while (<>) { print "[", $_, "]\n";#in your case, you would save this to an arra +y, or if you want scalar reset local $/ }` [download] For example, if you are running win32, you can do something like this: `dir\|perl -w foo.pl` [download] If you really mean STDOUT, not a mixture of STDOUT and STDERR, then take a look at IPC::Open3.	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Get result STDOUT of exe into scalar/array instead of file by Roger (Parson) on Jan 21, 2004 at 03:29 UTC
A simple way to capture STDOUT of a program into a scalar is with the qx or ` (backquote) operators. See perlop for more details. my $command = "$FindBin::Bin\\lib\\lmutil lmstat -c $VALOR_LICENSE_FIL +E"; my $result = qx/$command/; # qx / / # or my $result = `$command`; # backquote ` ` [download]	[reply] [d/l]