There is a command line utility named perldoc with which you can read perl documentation (and the documentation is also on the internet, if you prefer googeling. See http://perldoc.perl.org). If, for example, you do 

perldoc -f exec

[download]

it conveniently jumps to where the function is explained. And the first sentence there will tell you that "exec executes a system command and never returns"

If you read the other two (and I'll concede that the backticks documentation isn't that easy to find with perldoc), you will find out that the biggest difference between system and the backticks is that the backticks return the output of the system command and system does not

In reply to Re: Command Terminal: system(), exec() etc query by jethro
in thread Command Terminal: system(), exec() etc query by Anonymous Monk

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.