run perl -e from inside perl script in windows

Question

I need to run the following command from inside a Perl script in Windows. The code can't be simpler than this:

#! C:\Perl\bin\perl

perl -e "print qq(Hello)";

I save this file as test.pl. I open a command prompt in Windows and run the following from the c:\Per\bin directory. When I run it as perl test.pl, I get the following result:

C:\Perl\bin>perl test.pl
syntax error at test.pl line 3, near ""perl -e "print"
Execution of test.pl aborted due to compilation errors.

How can I fix this? If I just run perl -e from the command prompt (i.e. without being inside the file) it works great.

If you were running the script through perl (as the error shows), perl is not a command that Perl knows. It also tells you this. What could you possibly do in an -e that you can't do in a script?!?! The reason it runs great on the command line is that the OS considers perl a "command" if it can find it in the PATH. And perl -e is expected to "run great" from the command line--unlike in perl. — Axeman
– Axeman, Commented Aug 17, 2010 at 14:06

daxim · Accepted Answer · 2010-08-16 14:17:54Z

4

The test.pl file should contain:

print qq(Hello);

edited Aug 16, 2010 at 14:17

daxim

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answered Aug 16, 2010 at 13:49

codaddict

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Comments

daxim · Accepted Answer · 2010-08-16 14:35:07Z

2

Why would you want to run perl code with perl -e …? Just put the actual code in your program.

If, on the other hand, you want to run an external command from within your program, then the answer depends on what you want to do with the input/output and/or the exit code of your program. Have a look at system, qx and open.

edited Aug 16, 2010 at 14:35

daxim

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answered Aug 16, 2010 at 14:21

pavel

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Comments

Greg Bacon · Accepted Answer · 2010-08-16 16:10:44Z

To run another program from your Perl program, use the system operator that has a nice feature for bypassing the command shell's argument parsing.

If there is more than one argument in LIST, or if LIST is an array with more than one value, starts the program given by the first element of the list with arguments given by the rest of the list. If there is only one scalar argument, the argument is checked for shell metacharacters, and if there are any, the entire argument is passed to the system's command shell for parsing …

For example:

#! perl

system("perl", "-le", "print qq(Hello)") == 0
  or warn "$0: perl exited " . ($? >> 8);

Remember that system runs the command with its output going to the standard output. If you want to capture the output, do so as in

open my $fh, "-|", "perl", "-le", "print qq(Hello)"
  or die "$0: could not start perl: $!";

while (<$fh>) {
  print "got: $_";
}

close $fh or warn "$0: close: $!";

As with system, opening a command specified as a multi-element list bypasses the shell.

gangabass · Accepted Answer · 2010-08-16 14:02:40Z

1

I don't know why you need it but:

#!C:\Perl\bin\perl

`perl -e "print qq(Hello)"`;

answered Aug 16, 2010 at 14:02

gangabass

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1 Comment

Sinan Ünür Over a year ago

or system perl => -e => qq{"print qq(Hello)"} depending on where the OP wants the output to go.

Matthew J Morrison · Accepted Answer · 2010-08-16 13:51:37Z

0

Why not use eval?

answered Aug 16, 2010 at 13:51

Matthew J Morrison

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