http://www.perlmonks.org?node_id=1018967


in reply to Strange system call failure in OS X

Right now you're assigning a single string to the array @args. Instead you can assign a list to it, and omit the quoting entirely: 

@args = (qw(scutil --set ComputerName), $name);
system(@args)

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Though I guess that the problem is not with quoting, but something else.

Perhaps I should insert some sort of sleep command to pause between system calls?

And what would you gain from that?

Perl 6 - the future is here, just unevenly distributed

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Re^2: Strange system call failure in OS X
by endor-moon (Initiate) on Feb 15, 2013 at 21:13 UTC

    I have more system calls which might be cleaner if I send them as a list. Do I break it into a separate item for each argument? Any need for quotes? Here are the other system calls. They do actually work as they are but I would like to learn how to use the system call the "right" way so to speak.

    # Disable autologin
@args = ("defaults delete /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow a
+utoLoginUser");
system(@args);

# exit our test version here before doing anything irrevocable
exit 0;

# Serialize Adobe CS6 Design and Web Premium
@args = ("/Library/AdminToolBox/AdobeSerialization adobe_prtk --tool=V
+olumeSerialize --provfile=/Library/AdminToolBox/prov.xml");
system(@args);

# Bind to Active Directory
@args = ("/Library/AdminToolBox/bind.sh");
system(@args);

# This time we'll use exec since we are restarting anyway
@args = ("/sbin/shutdown -r now");
exec(@args);

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[select]
        $ perl -MData::Dump -e " dd\@ARGV " "he llo" there "bu ddy"
["he llo", "there", "bu ddy"]

$ perl -MData::Dump -e " dd\@ARGV " he llo there bu ddy
["he", "llo", "there", "bu", "ddy"]

$ perl - he llo there bu ddy
use Data::Dump;
dd\@ARGV;
__END__
["he", "llo", "there", "bu", "ddy"]

$

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Re^2: Strange system call failure in OS X
by endor-moon (Initiate) on Feb 15, 2013 at 20:46 UTC

    Sending a list to system is much cleaner, thank you, but the error remains. I think perhaps for now I will just delete the system call that isn't working, as when I inserted a call to get that preference, the correct value came back -- so perhaps I don't really need to set that particular value. (I read about this command on osxdaily.com.)

    Regarding sleep, there was nothing to be gained. I tried a sleep 4 without any change in the error. Perhaps it is a newbie attribute to hope that inserting a sleep will make a problem go away. <grin>

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