• everywhere the batch file has "%PARAM%", the perl file will have $param

• everywhere the batch file does "cd some\path" the perl file will do  chdir "some/path";

• if the batch file does a lot of "pushd" (especially if it does two or more of these before doing a "popd"), the perl file should have  use Cwd; and  my @dirstack; near the top. Then everywhere the batch file does "pushd %SOMEDIR%", the perl file will do  push @dirstack, getcwd(); chdir $somedir; and everywhere the batch file has "popd", the perl file will have  chdir pop @dirstack;

• where the batch file is putting literal strings on a command line, and presenting literal quotation marks as a string of three double-quotes ("""in quotes"""), the perl file will assign a quoted string to a variable or array element, and use a backslash to escape a quotation mark that should be part of the string:  $arg = "opt=x(foo,[bar=\"in-quotes\"])";

There might be ways to refactor or rethink the design of the batch files, to make better (shorter, easier to maintain) perl scripts, but if you're not a programmer, I don't know how far you'd be able or willing to go in that direction.

#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;

my $param1 = 'whatever';
my $param2 = 'whoever'; 

my $programtorun  =  'program_name';
my @parameters    =  ( $param1, $param2  );   
my @cmdline       =  ( $programtorun, @parameters );
system (@cmdline);  # will run cmd, and then return to script 
#exec (@cmdline);   # will replace currently running script
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/me wonders if backticks would be better than system(). IIRC system() does not capture any output. See this for more information: How do I get both the return value and text? backticks vs. system()

in most cases it is better to generate a temporary file with File::Temp, write the output in that file (e.g. system($cmd . " > $tmp_fn") ) and then parse the output file. this allows memory efficent parsers.

Thanks, zentara. I'll give that a shot.