Re: Running External Commands

[Michalis]

The best way (to my knowledge) to do that is to use backticks, assigning the result to a scalar (the output doesn't have to be a single line, or a single word or anything. For example:

$result=`/bin/tail -15 /var/adm/messages`;

You should be very careful though, if you decide to pass to the command options from the user's input (for example through a CGI script). But that's a fact, either you use backticks or system.

[ivey]

Since you've almost mentioned taint checking, I figured I'd jump in with a link to a taint checking FAQ.

CGI/Perl Taint Mode FAQ

Taint checking, for those that don't know, is how you solve the "be very careful" issue that Michalis mentioned.