Each process has its own work directory. Changing the work directory of one of its children (chdir("\\newdir")) or one of its grandchildren (system("cd \\newdir")) will have no effect on the work directory of the shell.

One solution it to output a directive to the shell and have the shell interpret that directive:

>cd
C:\

>for /f usebackq %q in (`perl -e"print 'foo'"`) do cd %q

>cd
C:\foo
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(Change %q to %%q in a batch file)

I'm pretty sure the answer is "you can't" change directory and have it remain in effect after your script ends.

Depending on why you're trying to do that, perhaps there is a way to spawn a command prompt from inside your perl process, thus keeping the context. I'm not an expert on Windows so someone else will have to tell you the best way to do that - looks like someone has already.

Hope this helps.

cda.bat

@echo off
cda.pl %* & \bat\aa.bat
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cda.pl

#!/usr/bin/perl
######################################################################
# Name: cda.pl
# Desc: CD to alternate directory (optionally to sub-directory).
######################################################################
use strict;
use warnings;
my $dir = "\\newdir";
if (@ARGV) {
   $dir .= "\\subdir" . rj(2,'0',shift);
}
my $ofile = "\\bat\\aa.bat";
open(OFILE, '>', $ofile) or die "Error opening $ofile: $!\n";
print OFILE "cd $dir\n";
print OFILE "cls\n";
print OFILE "dir /p /ogen\n";
close OFILE;
exit;

###################################################################
# This subroutine adds commas and right-justifies input number.
###################################################################
sub rj {
   my $pad = shift;
   my $dlm = shift;
   local($_)=@_;
   1 while s/(.*\d)(\d\d\d)/$1,$2/;
   $_ = ${dlm}x($pad-length($_)).$_;
}
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Hello

Something like this might work ??

system 'cmd /K "cd c:\"';
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