How to pass the output into an array

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

Dear Monks

I have been lately wondering, if I could pass the output generated by an external binary file or executable file, which has been invoked by system command and that generates some output. What usually I do is, I write the output in a file and then read the output via normal file handling and parse the output or what ever I intend to do.

###########################
##
##  $input contains the necessary parameters for the external executab
+le file and the output is generated into output_file created
##
###########################

`some_external_excutable_file $input >output_file`

open (OUTPUT,"output_file");
@output=<OUTPUT>;
close OUTPUT;

############################
##
##  I read the output file into an array and use the array for my furt
+her analysis
##
############################
[download]

But the spurring question here is, isn't there any other way to pass the output generated by the external executable directly into an array rather than the way I did. Is there any default variable for accomplishing it?

Comment on How to pass the output into an array Download Code

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Re: How to pass the output into an array by cdarke (Prior) on May 17, 2012 at 07:07 UTC
`Back-ticks`, or qx, redirects the external program's stdout stream back into perl. Used in list context you get one element for each line of output: my @output = `some_external_excutable_file $input`; [download] Of course you should be careful that there is not so much output that it busts memory.	[reply] [d/l]
Re: How to pass the output into an array by kcott (Archbishop) on May 17, 2012 at 07:15 UTC
My first thought was to just pipe the output from your system command to your perl code, something like: `some_external_excutable_file $input \| perl_prog.pl` [download] You can also run the system command from within your perl code. Take a look at open. About a third of the way down, examples like `open(ARTICLE, "-\|", "caesar <$article") ... open(ARTICLE, "caesar <$article \|") ...` [download] are probably close to the type of code you want. I'm not sure what you mean by "Is there any default variable for accomplishing it?". I may have missed your meaning: all the default variables are documented in perlvar, if that's of any help. -- Ken	[reply] [d/l] [select]