I'm writing this for some pretty weird specs that I didn't pick, and don't really have control over. I said sometimes admins put things in weird places, I didn't say I did. If I were really going to write this damned thing properly, I'd rewrite it using LWP and Crypt::SSLeay, but one of the BIG constraints is 'don't use modules' because the remote sites that may be using this thing aren't the brightest folks, and we can't make 'em install a buncha modules.

Heck, if it wouldn't be an amazing nightmare, they'd have me writing Crypt::SSLeay (or an equivalent) just so we wouldn't have to rely on these folks installing openssl. Fortunately, that was just too much, so I'm relying on openssl (this is a program that uploads to a secure web server). I'm hoping that it's in the default install directory for openssl, but if it's not in the default path, I want to check that default directory.

I guess I'll just go back to the ugly

chomp($openssl = `which openssl`);
if ( !(-X $openssl)) { $openssl = "/usr/local/openssl/bin/openssl";}
if ( !(-X $openssl)) { die "openssl required";}
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Update: I just re-read this, and it's not really clear what I mean about where I expect openssl to be. Try this instead: I'm hoping that openssl is in the user's PATH already¹, but if it's not, I want to check against the default install directory for openssl as a sort of last resort. After all, we have openssl installed in that default install dir, but that dir isn't in my PATH either.

¹ Perhaps the word "weird" was misleading. I wouldn't be really surprised if openssl had been installed into, say, /usr/local/bin/ instead. That's why I'd like to check the PATH first. You know what "assume" translates as.