Does exactly the same thing as "exec LIST", except that a fork is done first

From system documentation. It is equivalent to a fork/exec, just more efficient.

The point is that qx// returns the output as a scalar or array but does not explictly print anything to STDOUT (as it used to be in the old days in null context apparently).

Use system instead of exec.

Joost.

-- 
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;$;=
";Jtunsitr pa;ngo;t1h\$e;r. )p.e(r;ls ;h;a;c.k^e;rs 
";$_=$;;do{$..=chop}while(chop);$_=$;;eval$.;
[download]

Not quite. According to my copy of the Camel Book, under system() it says:

To capture the output from a command, use backticks or qx//."

Which is what I had been doing.
---
"Ex libris un peut de tout"

No, you dumped the output away:

From perlop / qx:

The collected standard output of the command is returned; standard error is unaffected. In scalar context, it comes back as a single (potentially multi-line) string, or undef if the command failed. In list context, returns a list of lines (however you've defined lines with $/ or $INPUT_RECORD_SEPARATOR), or an empty list if the command failed.

That means the output of qx!command! will not be send to STDOUT, but returned from the qx call; you cannot capture it from outside the perl program executing qx!command!. You need system("command") which will let all output through to STDOUT (and STDERR) so you can capture it later.

You COULD also do print qx!command! but I don't really see the point :-)

Joost.

-- 
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;$;=
";Jtunsitr pa;ngo;t1h\$e;r. )p.e(r;ls ;h;a;c.k^e;rs 
";$_=$;;do{$..=chop}while(chop);$_=$;;eval$.;
[download]