I am attempting to call a function from within a perl script that will contact a monitoring program. I am getting compilation errors on this line of code.

 $testmessage = system(/usr/bin/postemsg -S tecserver -r(harmless) -m "(This is a test message)" hostname=(Trapeze) notify_action=email alias_notify=(pbkhk) (Event_Message_Class) (SOURCE));

I am getting the following as output:

 Bareword found where operator expected at TDC-fabric-monitor.pl line 
+172, near "/usr/bin"
        (Missing operator before bin?)
Unquoted string "tecserver" may clash with future reserved word at TDC
+-fabric-monitor.pl line 172.
Unquoted string "harmless" may clash with future reserved word at TDC-
+fabric-monitor.pl line 172.
Bareword found where operator expected at TDC-fabric-monitor.pl line 1
+72, near "m "(This is a test message at the end of the script)" hostn
+ame"
        (Do you need to predeclare m?)
Bareword found where operator expected at TDC-fabric-monitor.pl line 1
+72, near ") notify_action"
        (Missing operator before notify_action?)
syntax error at TDC-fabric-monitor.pl line 172, near "/usr/bin"
Execution of TDC-fabric-monitor.pl aborted due to compilation errors
[download]

Is there any way to format the system call so that Perl just passes that call to the outside shell? Should I be using something other than system() to call the postemsg command?

Thanks,