Thanks very much for the reply. Putting the command and its arguments into an array that becomes the first argument to 'run' is now obvious; thanks for pointing that out!

I wish I could use something simpler than IPC::Run, but I don't think I can (please tell me I'm wrong).

I need to run a program, and then do things with the program's output. So, system() (which doesn't allow this) isn't the right tool.

Worse, I need to feed responses to the program as it runs. Backticks doesn't support this.

I had initially looked at Open2(), but that didn't work on Windows XP. So, I'm trying IPC::Run, as it SEEMS to be the best solution.

I'd very much value the opinion of others with more Perl experience than me (which, at this point, includes many house plants).

Thanks! tl