P0w3rK!d has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

How would you grab $c in the following shell script? 
[Perl Program]
$testprog = "testprog";
$a=1;
$b=2;
$c="This is a test";
system($testprog $a $b $c)

[download]
... 
[in Shell script "testprog"]
a=$1
b=$2
c=$3
echo $a = 1
echo $b = 2
echo $c = "This"

[download]
How do I get $c to be "This is a test"? Do I use shift or something else?

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Passing Command line values from Perl to Sh via system()
by RatArsed (Monk) on Jul 17, 2001 at 19:01 UTC
    IIRC, you need to pass the parameter with quotes, as the shell will split on whitespace otherwise... 

    [Perl Program]
$testprog = "testprog";
$a=1;
$b=2;
$c="\"This is a test\"";
system($testprog $a $b $c)
... 

[in Shell script "testprog"]
a=$1
b=$2
c=$3
echo $a = 1
echo $b = 2
echo $c = "This is a test"

    [download]

    --
    RatArsed

[reply]
[d/l]
Re: Passing Command line values from Perl to Sh via system()
by Jonathan (Curate) on Jul 17, 2001 at 19:25 UTC
    Try 
    system("$testprog $a $b '$c'");

    [download]
    Instead, this gives 
    1 = 1
2 = 2
"This is a test" = This is a test

    [download]
    Is this what you meant?
[reply]
[d/l]
[select]
      What can I do in this case? 
          #...call to function
    &SomeFunction($a, $b, $c);

    #...in the function
    
    @args = ("$program $a $b $c");
    system(@args) == 0
        or die "system @args failed: $?";

      [download]
      ...Do I change it to this? 
          #...call to function
    &SomeFunction($a, $b, '$c');

    #...in the function
    
    @args = ("$program $a $b '$c'");
    system(@args) == 0
        or die "system @args failed: $?";

      [download]
      ?
[reply]
[d/l]
[select]
Re: Passing Command line values from Perl to Sh via system()
by merlyn (Sage) on Jul 17, 2001 at 20:11 UTC
[reply]
[d/l]

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