dir likely is not an external program but a shell built-in. Thus your backticks fail, and thus $newTest is undef. You can inspect $? and $! for the error(s). Maybe you meant to run cmd /c dir, or maybe you wanted readdir, glob or File::Find?

Perl automatically tries cmd /c $command is executing $command fails (or something like that), so `dir` actually does work on Windows.

I consider that a bug since it harms error reporting.

>perl -e"print `dir /b`"
bar
foo

Windows:
>perl -le"`nonexistant`; print $?; print $! if $?==-1"
'nonexistant' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.
256

unix:
$ perl -le'`nonexistant`; print $?; print $! if $?==-1'
-1
No such file or directory
[download]

Maybe something in here can help: Troubleshooting Perl CGI scripts

#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;
use IPC::System::Simple qw(capture);

my $results = capture('gunzip -cf /usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/CGI.pm');
print $results;
[download]

I'm using Activestate version of Perl and download modules using ppm. When I try loading that module it gives me an error back, 403 forbidden error. Is there another approach to take to accomplish the same thing? Thanks for the message.

    results = `gunzip -cf <C:/temp/decrypt/out-3908.gz`;
    print $results;
[download]

    eval("results = `gunzip -cf <C:/temp/decrypt/out-3908.gz`");
    print $results . " | " . $!;
[download]

eval("results = `gunzip -cf <C:/temp/decrypt/out-3908.gz`");
[download]

will likely be an error, because the backticks get interpolated in your double quotes. So unless gunzip -cf <C:/temp/decrypt/out-3908.gz returns Perl code, that won't work.

How big is the file you're unzipping?

---

Examine what is said, not who speaks -- Silence betokens consent -- Love the truth but pardon error.

"Science is about questioning the status quo. Questioning authority".

In the absence of evidence, opinion is indistinguishable from prejudice.

"I'd rather go naked than blow up my ass"

First, could you post the code you actually used?

It might also help if you said which platform you are using. (Windows, Cygwin, unix)

What's $?? $! is only meaningful if $? is -1.