I found that with ActiveState Perl 5.10 on Windows, I can do a system("dir myfile"), but I can't do a system("type myfile"). Could someone kindly explain me why? Here the example code to demonstrate this problem: 
# This is program omoshiroi.pl
use strict;
use warnings;

sub systemx($) {
  my $cmd=shift;
  print "EXECUTING: $cmd\n";
  system $cmd;
}

my $tmpfh=$ARGV[0];
systemx("dir $tmpfh");
systemx("type $tmpfh");
systemx("cmd /c type $tmpfh");

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The only purpose of systemx is to show the command being executed. Now create some text file, say: abc.bat, and execute it like this: 
omoshiroi.pl abc.bat

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On my system, the output looks like this: 
H:\tmp>omoshiroi1.pl abc.bat
EXECUTING: dir abc.bat
 Datenträger in Laufwerk H: ist CIFS.HOMEDIR
 Datenträgernummer: 0000-0000

 Verzeichnis von H:\tmp

15.05.2008  14:00                   65 abc.bat
               1 Datei(en)             65 Bytes
               0 Verzeichnis(se),   1.239.298.048 Bytes frei
EXECUTING: type abc.bat
abc.bat not found
EXECUTING: cmd /c type abc.bat
pwd
. $HOME
.bash_profile
echo $PATH
sview fischron_exp_dv ls -a

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As you can see, dir can find the file, cmd /c type can find the file, but type can't find it. Strange, isn't it?
-- 
Ronald Fischer <ynnor@mm.st>

In reply to Windoze oddity? by rovf

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