running files from other directories

blinlk182 has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: running files from other directories by Zaxo (Archbishop) on Apr 16, 2005 at 20:15 UTC
Put the directory in your $PATH or give system the full path to the script. `system '/path/to/PDFtoHTML/pdftohtml', '/some/path/to/file.pdf' and die $?;` [download] After Compline, Zaxo	[reply] [d/l]
Re^2: running files from other directories by Tanktalus (Canon) on Apr 17, 2005 at 01:28 UTC
To add to this - I usually use the full path or a relative path (I hate modifying the PATH). I find that FindBin and File::Spec are incredibly useful for this. `use FindBin; use File::Spec; use lib File::Spec->catdir($FindBin::Bin, 'lib'); # get modules from t +he lib subdirectory under this perl script #... my $exe = File::Spec->catfile($FindBin::Bin, File::Spec->updir(), qw(PDFtoHTML pdftohtml)); system($exe, $pdffile) == 0 or do { # handle system error. }` [download]	[reply] [d/l]
Re: running files from other directories by tlm (Prior) on Apr 16, 2005 at 20:10 UTC
What's your OS? In Unix, `% /path/to/pdftohtml file.pdf` [download] is usually sufficient. If you're trying to do this from within a script, then `system '/path/to/pdftohmtl', 'file.pdf' and die "$?\n";` [download] the lowliest monk	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: running files from other directories by nimdokk (Vicar) on Apr 17, 2005 at 15:03 UTC
Using the absolute path to the executable as others have mentioned is a good idea. Also, bear in mind that if you put the path into $PATH, and you run this script from cron, you will lose that PATH information. A good idea would be to use the full path the executable with the system command.	[reply]