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Re: system call vs. back quotes

by indapa (Monk)
on Jan 25, 2002 at 03:21 UTC ( [id://141371]=note: print w/replies, xml ) Need Help??


in reply to system call vs. back quotes

A follow up question on this thread. Is it better to use backticks/system calls rather than a perl function. For example when renaming files is better to use perl's rename function, or a 'mv' command? Or another example, using unlink vs. rm.

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
(RhetTbull) Re: Re: system call vs. back quotes
by RhetTbull (Curate) on Jan 25, 2002 at 04:38 UTC
    I think it's almost always better to use the perl builtin or a module than a system call. First, it makes your code more portable. What if the script needs to be run on an OS without a "mv" command? Second, it's probably a bit easier to do error handling when calling a perlfunc than having to trap (and sometimes fiddle with) the return value of system. Given the plethora of great modules such as Archive::Tar, File::Copy, Compress::Zlib, Archive::Zip, etc. I find that I very rarely need to do a system call. There are times when you need to call an OS specific or some other 3rd party program but I find those times to be very rare.

    Whenever I find myself using system I always ask myself "Self, is there an all-perl way to do this?" It's saved me time more than once when I had to port the script to a different OS.

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