Simnple script not working

zerocred has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Hi Brethern,
I have just re-installed windows XP (a few weeks back) and the latest Activestate Perl 5.12.2
When I run Hello World:

#!/usr/bin/perl
print("hello world \n");
[download]

I Get:

D:\dev\test>hi.pl
Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600]
(C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp.

D:\dev\test>
[download]

It seems to have launched a new command shell. Its exactly the same as I get if I type 'cmd'...
Any ideas brethern? AVG reports no visrus...

Comment on Simnple script not working - Perl on XP Select or Download Code

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Re: Simnple script not working - Perl on XP by Utilitarian (Vicar) on Jan 11, 2011 at 14:59 UTC
You have associated cmd with .pl files. Try `D:\dev\test>perl hi.pl` [download] `print "Good ",qw(night morning afternoon evening)[(localtime)[2]/6]," fellow monks."`	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^2: Simnple script not working - Perl on XP by zerocred (Beadle) on Jan 11, 2011 at 15:05 UTC
Ah Ha! Thanks you that is it. In the past putting .pl always worked OK so I didn't think of that... Cheers! z	[reply]
Re: Simnple script not working - Perl on XP by mikeraz (Friar) on Jan 11, 2011 at 17:37 UTC
As an anonymous monk pointed out, the following is wrong. In a Windows environment it is sometimes(?) required to replace `#!/usr/bin/perl` with `#!perl` Then you can just hi.pl Be Appropriate && Follow Your Curiosity	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^2: Simnple script not working - Perl on XP by zerocred (Beadle) on Jan 12, 2011 at 06:15 UTC
Thanks for that I realize the line isn't really necessary, but its habit. Most or all my perl scripts end up being run on Linux. I went into the file manager > file type associations and changed the .pl to Perl, so I can just type 'hi.pl' and it runs ok. I think what happened was when ActivePerl got deleted before reinstalation, or my reinstall of XP, the .pl got associated with Command Interpreter cos Perl didn't exist - sounds plausible. The association was not made again when Perl was re-installed - until I manually fixed it.	[reply]
Re^2: Simnple script not working - Perl on XP by Anonymous Monk on Jan 11, 2011 at 18:45 UTC
That's not the case. Perl on Windows parses the line for command-line-like flags because it has to (so -w and -l and -T and so forth will work), but since Perl is already running, it doesn't care about what binary the script claims should be invoked.	[reply]
Re^3: Simnple script not working - Perl on XP by syphilis (Archbishop) on Jan 12, 2011 at 07:14 UTC
it doesn't care about what binary the script claims should be invoked Interestingly enough, it does care about the name of the binary, but only to the extent that it matches `/perl/i`. If you try running a script that begins with `#! xxxxx` (where 'xxxxx' stands for any string of characters that does not match `/perl/i`) then all you'll get is a "Can't exec xxxxx ...." error. This wasn't always the case, but has been since at least perl-5.8.0 Update: And if 'xxxxx' happens to be the name of a non-perl binary that does get found, then things might (or might not) get a little crazy: `C:\_32\pscrpt>type try.pl #! gcc -w print "ok\n"; C:\_32\pscrpt>perl try.pl C:\_32\pscrpt>try.pl: file not recognized: File format not recognized collect2: ld returned 1 exit status C:\_32\pscrpt>` [download] Cheers, Rob	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^3: Simnple script not working - Perl on XP by ikegami (Patriarch) on Jan 11, 2011 at 18:55 UTC
I believe one of the major web servers uses that info, so while the switch wouldn't help in this situation, it could help in others.	[reply]