invoking rsh and testing for success/failure

[Anonymous Monk]

I am prompting the user for some information, once they enter that info my script uses that that information to locate a file via ls in a directory via a rsh command. If the file does not exist the system responds with a "No match." and my perl script continues on as if everything is ok. I know I need to set up an if statement, but am uncertain what I need to check for....I am new to perl and have hunted on the web, but to no avail....can you all help? Thanks, T

2005-04-02 Edited by Arunbear: Changed title from 'perl question', as per Monastery guidelines

[ikegami]

if (`rsh ...` =~ /No match/) {
   die("File not found.\n");
}

`` returns the STDOUT of the command as a string instead of displaying it. If you need both STDOUT and STDERR, redirect STDERR to STDOUT (by addiging "2>&1" to the command).

[Anonymous Monk]

Thanks a bunch!! I finally figured it out and it works! really appreciate your help though. Have a great weekend! T

[RazorbladeBidet]

Alternatively, you can check the return code of the execution. (see perlvar)

my $cmd = "rsh $file"; # or whatever
my $output = qx/$cmd/; # qx// is the same as ``
my $rc = $?;                # $? is a special Perl variable 
if ( $rc ) { 
  print STDERR "No Match\n"; # you just want to print and continue, ri
+ght?
}