Re: Splitting output of a system command into an array

You seem to have the method correct: use backticks (see perlop) to capture the output of free into a scalar. Then split on whitespace to get the "words":

my $free = `free`;
my @words = split /\s+/, $free;

shift @words if $words[0] eq '';
[download]

shift removes an empty string from @words caused by $free starting with spaces.

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Re^2: Splitting output of a system command into an array by jwkrahn (Abbot) on Sep 29, 2007 at 20:50 UTC
`my @words = split /\s+/, $free;` [download] shift removes an empty string from @words caused by $free starting with spaces. Or you could just use split correctly and you wouldn't have an empty string. `my @words = split ' ', $free;` [download]	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^2: Splitting output of a system command into an array by sKiBa (Initiate) on Sep 29, 2007 at 17:58 UTC
That's exactly what I was after, thank you. I will have to read through all my various test scripts as i'm sure I had tried that, definitely hadn't done the shift though. Also, is it possible to read each line into it's own array rather than all into one?	[reply]
Re^3: Splitting output of a system command into an array by FunkyMonk (Bishop) on Sep 29, 2007 at 18:23 UTC
Also, is it possible to read each line into it's own array rather than all into one? Yes, just use my @lines = `free`;	[reply] [d/l] [select]