Hi, Thanks for the reply guys. From the sounds of it, there is no "simple" way of doing this. I think the approach I'm gonna take is putting some examples in "comments" inside the script, so they can test the different paths themselves (and if needed, as their host). So something like:

my $path = 'apachectl';

my $output = `$path -v`;
my @split = split /:/, $output;

if ($split[1] !~ /\d\.\d\.\d/) {
  print qq|Cant find Apache version <br />|;  
} else {
  print qq|$split[1] <br />|;
}
[download]

Thanks guys. Andy

---

---

• Are you posting in the right place? Check out Where do I post X? to know for sure.
• Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags. Currently these include the following:

  <code> <a> <b> <big> <blockquote> <br /> <dd> <dl> <dt> <em> <font> <h1> <h2> <h3> <h4> <h5> <h6> <hr /> <i> <li> <nbsp> <ol> <p> <small> <strike> <strong> <sub> <sup> <table> <td> <th> <tr> <tt> <u> <ul>

• Snippets of code should be wrapped in <code> tags not <pre> tags. In fact, <pre> tags should generally be avoided. If they must be used, extreme care should be taken to ensure that their contents do not have long lines (<70 chars), in order to prevent horizontal scrolling (and possible janitor intervention).
• Want more info? How to link or How to display code and escape characters are good places to start.