system("C:\\WINNT\\System32\\freecell.exe") == 0 
    or die "Returned $?";
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stephen

# split your arguments up (recommended)
system("cjpeg.exe","-gr","/program Files/Lego Mindstroms/Image0001.bmp
+");

# single quote the filepath
system("cjpeg.exe -gr '/program Files/Lego Mindstroms/Image0001.bmp' "
+);
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Read the docs here.

cLive ;-)

Update: - see Stephen's reply below. Quick note, he uses \\ in the file path because \ in a double quoted string has a special meaning and must be 'escaped'.

If you want, you can put the actual path in a single quoted string, ie:

system('C:\path\to\cjpeg.exe','-gr','C:\program Files\Lego Mindstroms\
+Image0001.bmp');
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or write it in non-windows format:

system('C:/path/to/cjpeg.exe','-gr','C:/program Files/Lego Mindstroms/
+Image0001.bmp');
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For more information, look up interpolation in the super search.

Another quick note, Perl seems to be rather nice as far as your directory delimiter is concerned, allowing you to use / or \ on windoze machines (AFAIK). Just remember though that \ can have special meaning.

Finally, "Mindstroms" or "Mindstorms"??? :)

Thanks for your suggestions. I tried both of your recommendations and I am still receiving the error. Can you think of something else?

Perhaps you need to *dosify* the path like \PROGRA~1\LEGOMI~1\IMAGE0~1.BMP

I would try it on your command prompt first, and then work out exactly what windows likes - then work out which is the best way to quote it properly in your perl. EEjack

There may be a simpler way to "DOSify" the file name but this works for me. There's a Win32 API call GetShortPathName that returns the DOSified path name. You can call it from perl using Win32::API. The prototype is

DWORD GetShortPathName(
  LPCTSTR lpszLongPath,  // null-terminated path string
  LPTSTR lpszShortPath,  // short form buffer
  DWORD cchBuffer        // size of short form buffer
);
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The equivalent call in perl can be written like this:

use Win32::API;

#import the function
my $GetShortPathName = new Win32::API("kernel32","GetShortPathName",[ 
+P,P,N ],N);


if (not defined $GetShortPathName) {
    die "could not import GetShortPathName";
}

#the name we want to convert
$longname = "C:\\Program Files\\Microsoft Office\\Office\\OLREAD9.TXT"
+;

#create a string big enough to hold the shortname
$shortname = " " x 80;

#retval will be length of the DOSified short name
$retval = $GetShortPathName->Call($longname,$shortname,80);

#trim the trailing blanks
#recall that $shortname = " " x 80
#and retval is the length of the name returned by GetShortPathName
$shortname = substr($shortname,0,$retval);

print "longname = \n\"$longname\", \nshortname = \n\"$shortname\"";
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On my system, this returns

C:\temp>perl shortname.pl
longname =
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\OLREAD9.TXT",
shortname =
"C:\PROGRA~1\MICROS~3\Office\OLREAD9.TXT"
C:\temp>
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