tlm, just because they're using backticks doesn't mean that they care about the output. It should mean that, but it doesn't necessarily mean that. I've seen many occurances, both here at perlmonks and at work, where people use backticks in void context as a short-cut to running system.

Confusing the situation just a bit more is how the OP talks about possibly using require instead. Now, one possibility is that the OP doesn't need backticks, the other is that require wouldn't fit the bill, even if the "-h" parameter went away.

In reply to Re^3: shelling out too much by Tanktalus
in thread shelling out too much by iblair

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