Re^3: System Command Issues

That sounds to me like a bad e-mail address. If the e-mail address was given in a double-quoted string, did you escape (i.e. backslash) the @? (If not, in addition to doing that, you should be running this under strict, because under strict an unescaped @ in a double-quoted string would have most likely caused the compilation to fail, thereby alerting you to the problem; it's a good thing to do in general.) And, as ikegami noted, what are the strings in $Version and $ID?

BTW, I tried a similar short script, and it worked fine; this is what I ran:

use strict;
use warnings;

my $address = 'myaddress@myhost.com';
my $subject = 'nothing';
system( "mail $address -s $subject < random.txt" ) == 0
  or die "mail failed: $?";
[download]

the lowliest monk

Comment on Re^3: System Command Issues Download Code

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Re^4: System Command Issues by blanket (Initiate) on Jun 09, 2005 at 14:02 UTC
Hmm. I've tried that code as well. The "strict" and "warnings" commands are very helpful indeed. It's pointing out some mysterious errors on a particular line: Possible unintended interpolation of @whatever in string at myscript.pl line 158. Possible unintended interpolation of @whatever in string at myscript.pl line 158. Global symbol "@whatever" requires explicit package name at myscript.pl line 158. Global symbol "@whatever" requires explicit package name at myscript.pl line 158. Execution of myscript.pl aborted due to compilation errors. The line in question is a simple print command immediately following the last line of the code I am posting. Line 157 is the system() command causing all the trouble... `use strict; use warnings; my $address = 'myemail@whatever.com'; my $subject = 'Comments Version: $version ID: $ID'; # backslash the @ sign in the address $address =~ s/@/\\$1/g; system( "mail $address -s $subject < blah6.txt" ) == 0 or die "mail failed: $?";` [download] By the way, $ID is a 10-character alphanumeric string, and $version is something like "5.3" or "5.4" or "Nightly" (sans quotes, of course). Any thoughts? I appreciate all the help so far, by the way. I'm a self-professed perl newb, and can use all the suggestions I can get. Thanks! --blanket	[reply] [d/l]
Re^5: System Command Issues by tlm (Prior) on Jun 09, 2005 at 14:27 UTC
This should work `use strict; use warnings; my $address = 'myemail@whatever.com'; my $subject = "Comments Version: $version ID: $ID"; system( "mail $address -s '$subject' < blah6.txt" ) == 0 or die "mail failed: $?";` [download] I made three changes to the code you posted: Eliminated the `s///` line since escaping is required only in a double-quoted context, but above the `@` is being given in a single-quoted context, so no variable interpolation occurs. I put the RHS of the assignment to `$subject` in double quotes, because in this case we do want interpolation (of `$Version` and `$ID`). In the argument to `system` I put `$subject` in single quotes, because otherwise the shell would interpret the various words in `$subject` as different arguments, as opposed to the single argument for `-s` This is definitely a little quoting workout! You may want to read the docs on quoting, to best make sense of the above. the lowliest monk	[reply] [d/l]
Re^6: System Command Issues by blanket (Initiate) on Jun 09, 2005 at 14:59 UTC
Ok. The code seems to have generated further errors. `use strict; use warnings; my $address = 'myemail@whatever.com'; my $subject = "Comments Version: $version ID: $ID"; system( "mail $address -s '$subject' < blah6.txt" ) == 0 or die "mail failed: $?";` [download] Generates: Variable "$ID" is not imported at myscript.pl line 137. Variable "$version" is not imported at myscript.pl line 137. Possible unintended interpolation of @whatever in string myscript.pl l +ine 154. Possible unintended interpolation of @whatever in string at myscript.p +l line 154. Global symbol "$ID" requires explicit package name at myscript.pl line + 137. Global symbol "$version" requires explicit package name at myscript.pl + line 137. Global symbol "@whatever" requires explicit package name at myscript.p +l line 154. Global symbol "@whatever" requires explicit package name at myscript.p +l line 154. Execution of myscript.pl aborted due to compilation errors. [download] Any more thoughts? I'm using Perl 5.8.0, if that makes any difference... Thanks again!	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^7: System Command Issues by blanket (Initiate) on Jun 09, 2005 at 15:32 UTC