Error checking on system SCP

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

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Re: Error checking on system SCP by ikegami (Patriarch) on Dec 14, 2005 at 18:36 UTC
That's an unsafe use of `system`. Using that syntax, `system` launches a shell to parse the command line string you're passing to `system`. That means you need to escape special characters $file and $target_host according to rules of whichever shell is used. But you can bypass the shell using the following syntax, since you don't use any features of the shell: `unless ( system( 'scp', $file, $target_host ) == 0 )` [download] That might even solve your problem. I think the problem is that you're getting the return value of the shell that's executed to parse the command to execute instead of `scp`'s. If you run `scp` directly, you'll get its error code.	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^2: Error checking on system SCP by rashley (Scribe) on Dec 14, 2005 at 19:22 UTC
I've made the change you suggested, thanks. Unfortunately, it's still returning zero every time.	[reply]
Re^3: Error checking on system SCP by ikegami (Patriarch) on Dec 14, 2005 at 19:45 UTC
Could it be that your `scp` doesn't return an error code? In Windows, I'd check it as following: `>copy nul nul 1 file(s) copied. >if errorlevel 1 echo >copy bad args The system cannot find the file specified. >if errorlevel 1 echo **` [download] As you can see, `copy` returns an error code >= 1 when it fails. Does your `scp` do the same?	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Error checking on system SCP by ptum (Priest) on Dec 14, 2005 at 18:27 UTC
Perhaps you want the output from the scp command rather than the exit code? You might get better results using backticks. Traditionally, I've used Net::SSH's sshopen3 and Net:SCP's put to solve this problem. No good deed goes unpunished. -- (attributed to) Oscar Wilde	[reply]
Re: Error checking on system SCP by turo (Friar) on Dec 14, 2005 at 20:14 UTC
i tried this way and the code runs as expected `perl -e 'die "oops\n" unless(system("scp","test.pl","turo\@somewhere.o +ver.the.rainbow:/tldk/") == 0); print "ok\n";'` [download] Maybe you are not making the correct call to the scp, i mean that maybe you are calling the scp like this: `scp test.pl turo@somewhere.bla.bla` without specifying the directory on which it must save the file (colon and the remote directory), it will exits correctly and will create a file 'turo@somewere.bla.bla' on your current directory. `perl -e '$site="turo\@somewhere.org"; die "oops\n" unless(system("scp" +,"test.pl",$site) == 0); print "ok\n";'` [download] Good luck! turo. `perl -Te 'print map { chr((ord)-((10,20,2,7)[$i++])) } split //,"turo"'`	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^2: Error checking on system SCP by rashley (Scribe) on Dec 14, 2005 at 20:20 UTC
I'm not sure I follow. I'm just giving it junk on the path. I want it to fail. I'm trying to test my error checking. The problem is, I haven't gotten the code to trigger the error checking, because my test for whether or not the SCP was successful always says that it was, even if it wasn't.	[reply]
Re^3: Error checking on system SCP by turo (Friar) on Dec 14, 2005 at 20:38 UTC
Umm (sorry, i must improve my english skills ...) "I'm just giving it junk on the path." It seems to be the problem. You must pass a well formed path (user@(dns-name\|ip-address):/path/to/somewhere), or scp will acts as a simple 'cp' or copy. try this errors: dns name does not exist host is down target directory does not exist user incorrect (you must pass the password) Regards turo `perl -Te 'print map { chr((ord)-((10,20,2,7)[$i++])) } split //,"turo"'`	[reply] [d/l]