You need to quote the command as well if it contains spaces. ie. This will work as. The inner, backslash-escaped quotes will be passed to the shell. 

my $ret = system( "\"D:\\Program Files\\bin\\t.pl\"" );

[download]

However, rather than having to escape the inner quotes and double the backslashes, it's easier to make use of perls profusion of quoting operators. 

my $ret = system( q[ "D:\Program Files\bin\t.pl" ]);

[download]

or 

my $ret = system( '"D:\Program Files\bin\t.pl"' );

[download]

As an example 

P:\test>copy con "d:\program files\test.pl8"
print "Hi there! from $0";
^Z
        1 file(s) copied.


P:\test>perl
system( '"d:\program files\test.pl8"' ) and warn 'Failed with: ', $?;
^Z
Hi there! from D:\program files\test.pl8
P:\test>

[download]

Hope that clarifies things a bit.

Examine what is said, not who speaks.
"Efficiency is intelligent laziness." -David Dunham
"When I'm working on a problem, I never think about beauty. I think only how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong." -Richard Buckminster Fuller
If I understand your problem, I can solve it! Of course, the same can be said for you.

In reply to Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Portability question: Is there something like '#ifdef' in Perl? by BrowserUk
in thread Portability question: Is there something like '#ifdef' in Perl? by sureshr

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.