[wplug] perl / cron problem

[Jonathan Billings]

Mike S wrote:
>> This seems like a rather pointless function.  Why don't you replace any
>> run(...) functions with "system(...) == 0 or die ...".  Also, "my @args
>> = shift" only puts the first argument in @args, so you're only running
>> system with the first parameter passed to run().  You're probably
>> running the run(...) function with only one parameter, so you haven't
>> encountered any problems yet.
> 
> That is the case, and I really like my code better with:
> run('tar czvf xyz abc');
> rather than
> system('tar czvf xyz abc') == 0 or die ('error:  What do you know...');
> because its a lot easier to type.

You'll still probably want to fix the bug in your code.  You should say 
"my @args = @_" instead of "my @args = shift" which has an implicit 
'shift @_'.

I understand the need to have readable code.  :)

>> You could have it store and print the exit status of the system()
>> command, to see what the return value of it was.
> 
> I am going to give that a whirl.  Does system return an integer?

It returns an integer masked by the return code of the shell that 
executed the command, because you're passing a string containing a 
command with arguments.  If you read the perldoc page for 'system' by 
running "perldoc -f system" you'll see more about it.


-- 
Jonathan S. Billings <billings at negate.org>