in reply to Running Command Line Programs from a CGI Script

If you can, use CGI::Carp qw/ fatalsToBrowser /;. You may also see more if you redirect STDERR to STDOUT. 

print `/opt/csw/bin/octave -qfH < $filename 2>&1`;

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--Solo

--
You said you wanted to be around when I made a mistake; well, this could be it, sweetheart.

In Section Seekers of Perl Wisdom