in reply to Non-shell-invoking system/exec and qx//

sub backticks {
  open(my $pipe, '-|', @_)
     or return;
  local $/ = wantarray ? $/ : undef;
  <$pipe>
}

[download]

Update: LOL! pc88mxer beat me to posting my own code!

In Section Seekers of Perl Wisdom