http://www.perlmonks.org?node_id=610831

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

I'm relatively new to Perl and I'm trying to use the system() call to run "start /min xxxx" from my Windows environment. However, the system command seems to keep converting the /min into \min. Is there anyway to prevent it from doing that?

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Re: Windows start /min
by Corion (Patriarch) on Apr 18, 2007 at 20:14 UTC

    I can't confirm that:

    perl -le "system('start /min cmd.exe')"
# starts a minimized command window, just as expected
# This is perl, v5.8.5 built for MSWin32-x86-multi-thread

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    So maybe show us your code - you get bonus points if you can reduce it to the following four lines:

    my $cmd = "..."; # this is the important part you have to supply
print "Trying to launch '$cmd'\n";
system($cmd) == 0
    or warn "Couldn't launch '$cmd': $!/$?";

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Re: Windows start /min
by ikegami (Patriarch) on Apr 18, 2007 at 20:39 UTC

    I tried to reproduce your problem in Win2k with ActivePerl 5.6.1 and on WinXP with ActivePerl 5.6.0, 5.6.1, 5.8.0 and 5.8.8 using 

    perl -e "system('start /min notepad');"

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    but it worked fine every time. Could you provide more info, such as the code you are using?

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[d/l]
      and 
      $ perl -e 'system("cmd /c start /min notepad") and die $!;'

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      works with Cygwin's Perl. (But note the required "cmd /c")
      Search, Ask, Know
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[d/l]
        Hi,

        I am having trouble with the "start" command.

        Here is the contents of the PERL5SHELL environment variable: 

            c:\>echo %PERL5SHELL%
    cmd.exe /c

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        Calling the "dir" command works fine: 
            c:\>perl -e "system(\"dir\")"
     Datenträger in Laufwerk C: ist SYSTEM
     Volumeseriennummer: CA02-1E1F
    
     Verzeichnis von c:\
    
    03.08.2012  14:24    <DIR>          cygwin
    09.10.2012  18:01    <DIR>          Daten
    ...
    10.10.2012  08:59    <DIR>          Windows
                   2 Datei(en),         15.460 Bytes
                  15 Verzeichnis(se), 144.527.847.424 Bytes frei

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        Calling "start dir" from Perl does not work: 
            c:\>perl -e "system(\"start dir\")"
    start: dir: Das System kann die angegebene Datei nicht finden.

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        Calling "start dir" directly opens a new window with the output from above: 
            c:\>start dir

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        Any idea what might cause this behaviour??

        Yours

        Markus

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Re: Windows start /min
by Moron (Curate) on Apr 18, 2007 at 20:18 UTC
    Although it usually works to put the command and its arguments in the first argument to system(), the dedicated place to put arguments (that therefore won't get treated as a filename which needs slash-bending for windows) is in the second argument to system() - the parameter list. See system for the exact syntax of a two-argument call.
    __________________________________________________________________________________

    ^M Free your mind!

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