Porting code between NT/Unix

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

I have a question concerning something I've never really thought about. Is there a method in Perl that allows a programmer to have certain pieces of code execute depending on what system architecture that code resides on? For example:

if (on Win32) {
   do this;
}
else {
   # Assume unix box
   do that;
}
[download]

Anyone have any ideas?

Comment on Porting code between NT/Unix Download Code

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Re: Porting code between NT/Unix by chipmunk (Parson) on Dec 08, 2000 at 03:21 UTC
Yes, the $^O variable is what you're looking for. (That's a caret and a capital o.) `if ($^O =~ /Win32/i) { do this; } else { do that; }` [download] Head on over to perlvar to read more about this special variable.	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Porting code between NT/Unix by myocom (Deacon) on Dec 08, 2000 at 03:21 UTC
The `$^O` special variable will tell you the OS you're running on, so you could do something like: `if ($^O eq 'MSWin32') { # do something Win32ish } else { # do something Unixy }` [download] See also perlfaq8.	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Porting code between NT/Unix by eg (Friar) on Dec 08, 2000 at 11:05 UTC
I suppose you really man 'operating system' rather than 'system architecture', but just in case, you can find the latter with Config.pm use Config; if ( $Config{archname} eq whatever ) { ... } This'll allow to differentiate between linux on alpha and linux on sgi or Dreamcast or whatever. Of course see the Config perldoc for more details.	[reply]