comment on

Hrm..

Well that's frustrating.. I'm not sure what to do about this..

Some ideas:

Redirect the output to a file; read the file .(e.g.,
```
 
system("$program $paramlist > file.txt");
[download]
```
This might work in the general case, but this particular REXX script ("fmtscan()")I'm calling doesn't generate output. It only returns a value. I couldn't change that without breaking all the REXX programs that call it.
Change fmtscan() to return a string instead of a numeric value. This would work fine since everything is a string in REXX, and it seems there must be a way to do that in Perl... but I don't know what that way is.
Rewrite fmtscan() in Perl, itself! Sounds fun, sounds like a learning experience... sounds like I'll finally have to learn to build a module. About damn time, I say.

The whole REXX part of this has to do with the fact that my company has been using REXX almost exclusively for a long time. If you've ever worked with it, you know that REXX is a scripting language, with little to recommend it other than that it's Turing-complete and it looks like pseudocode. REXX kind of reminds me of Perl, except without the speed, versatility, support, low cost, or all that pesky functionality. I'm trying to convert the other programmers here, and am being met with measurable but limited success (Some of them just like REXX -- which is fine, as There's More Than One Way to Do Everything -- even program). Getting the languages to play well together is going to eventually be necessary.

Sorry for the long ramble, but I'm one of those "0 - where are you guys?" folk. Wish me luck.

In reply to Long Ramble about my options by Anonymous Monk
in thread Annoying system() limitations by Anonymous Monk

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