NB: This is all guesses. I haven't proved any of it.

I believe you're saying "When I run this command with *this* argument, the argument gets mangled"

Short Answer (I think, not tested at all): 

system("VisualSourceSafe", "history", $variable);

[download]

Long answer: you're giving system 1 argument, which contains a "special" character, so system hands it to the shell for processing. Passing system a list avoids that problem.
Check perldoc -f system for more information.


davis
It's not easy to juggle a pregnant wife and a troubled child, but somehow I managed to fit in eight hours of TV a day.

In reply to Re: DOS coding compatibility with perl "é"->"'" by davis
in thread DOS coding compatibility with perl "é"->"'" by blanchon

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