I want to start "notepad" in the background from a perl script. On my PC I have both Cygwin and ActivePerl. This is my test script:

system("notepad.exe &")

Actually, I have two scripts. The only difference between the two is the very first line in the script.

The script on Cygwin starts with:

#!/usr/bin/perl

The ActivePerl script starts with:

#!c:/Perl/bin/perl

The Cygwin script does just what I want, it starts a Notepad window, and the script terminates. The ActivePerl script starts a Notepad window, but also brings up a little message window stating that it can't find the file "&.txt", and the perl script is waiting on the Notepad window. Obviously, it "thinks" I am passing the file name "&" as the file to open with Notepad. What's wrong? What do I have to do to make the ActivePerl script open the Notepad window in the background (like it does with the Cygwin Perl script)?

Thanks.


In reply to Start an MS window in background from a perl script by rlambert7

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.