The problem is not that the setview command hasn't completed, it's that it is running in a child process, and is not affecting the calling process at all. You need to arrange to have your perl script called from an environment where setview has already been done.

I accept your view. But what i want is wait till the child process ends and then continue running the calling (parent process).

Then you'll either want to use fork and waitpid or one of the many Fork modules on cpan that do that for you, such as Parallel::ForkManager.

---

My criteria for good software:

1. Does it work?
2. Can someone else come in, make a change, and be reasonably certain no bugs were introduced?

Using system() to execute the command does make the script wait until it's finished. Read it in the docs: system

# write.pl

my $pid = fork;
if($pid == 0) {
    sleep 5;
    system('echo "hello world" > foo.txt');
}
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# copy.pl

my $test = system('perl', 'write.pl');

my $file1 = 'foo.txt';
my $status = system("cp $file1 file2");
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$ perl -w copy.pl
cp: cannot stat `foo.txt': No such file or directory
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# copy2.pl

use strict;
 
my $test = system('perl', 'write.pl');

my $file1 = 'foo.txt';

while(1) {
    last if -e $file1 && ! qx/lsof $file1/;
} 
my $status = system("cp $file1 file2");
[download]

What about just executing both commands in a single system() command?

    my $cmd = "/usr/atria/bin/cleartool";
    my $status = system("$cmd setview $view ; cp $file1 file2");
[download]

In that case, both commands will be run by the same shell, and any environment set up by the first command will be available to the second. Also, the second command won't execute before the first has finished (as usual, shell commands separated by ';' are being executed in sequence — unless they fork themselves in the background (which I don't presume ct setview is doing...)).

Or maybe

    my $status = system("$cmd setview $view && cp $file1 file2");
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in which case the second command will only execute if the first succeeded.

(Essentially, you've then (dynamically) written a little shell script which you simply call from Perl.)

• ClearCase::Proc::ClearTool
• File::Copy::Reliable

Would using the -exec option of setview help?