Re: shell commands return values
From: John W. Krahn (krahnj_at_acm.org)
Date: 07/07/04
- Next message: David Schwartz: "Re: malloc's out-of-memory error handling"
- Previous message: Kasper Dupont: "Re: malloc's out-of-memory error handling"
- In reply to: dushkin_at_012.net.il: "shell commands return values"
- Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ]
Date: Wed, 07 Jul 2004 21:44:46 GMT
dushkin@012.net.il wrote:
>
> Hello,
Hello,
> I am programming perl scripts on unix.
You might want to post Perl questions on comp.lang.perl.misc instead or
maybe one of the mailing lists at http://lists.perl.org/.
> I want to create and
> manipulate directories.
perldoc perlfunc
[snip]
Input and output functions
`binmode', `close', `closedir', `dbmclose', `dbmopen',
`die', `eof', `fileno', `flock', `format', `getc',
`print', `printf', `read', `readdir', `rewinddir',
`seek', `seekdir', `select', `syscall', `sysread',
`sysseek', `syswrite', `tell', `telldir', `truncate',
`warn', `write'
[snip]
Functions for filehandles, files, or directories
`-X', `chdir', `chmod', `chown', `chroot', `fcntl',
`glob', `ioctl', `link', `lstat', `mkdir', `open',
`opendir', `readlink', `rename', `rmdir', `stat',
`symlink', `umask', `unlink', `utime'
> For this matter, I use shell commands. I used
> backtics and then turned to system().
> My question is: how can I know if the shell command succeeded? I
> know according to system() man page that it returns 127 or -1 if the
> command failed. However, there were some places in the script where it
> created a directory as needed but system() still returned -1...
>
> What is the correct way of getting and exploring the shell
> commands returned values?
perldoc -f system
[snip]
Because `system' and backticks block `SIGINT' and
`SIGQUIT', killing the program they're running
doesn't actually interrupt your program.
@args = ("command", "arg1", "arg2");
system(@args) == 0
or die "system @args failed: $?"
You can check all the failure possibilities by
inspecting `$?' like this:
$exit_value = $? >> 8;
$signal_num = $? & 127;
$dumped_core = $? & 128;
When the arguments get executed via the system
shell, results and return codes will be subject to
its quirks and capabilities. See the section on
"`STRING`" in the perlop manpage and the exec
entry elsewhere in this document for details.
perldoc perlvar
[snip]
$CHILD_ERROR
$? The status returned by the last pipe close, back
tick (```') command, successful call to wait() or
waitpid(), or from the system() operator. This is
just the 16-bit status word returned by the wait()
system call (or else is made up to look like it).
Thus, the exit value of the subprocess is really
(`$? >> 8'), and `$? & 127' gives which signal, if
any, the process died from, and `$? & 128' reports
whether there was a core dump. (Mnemonic: similar
to sh and ksh.)
Additionally, if the `h_errno' variable is sup
ported in C, its value is returned via $? if any
`gethost*()' function fails.
If you have installed a signal handler for
`SIGCHLD', the value of `$?' will usually be wrong
outside that handler.
John
-- use Perl; program fulfillment
- Next message: David Schwartz: "Re: malloc's out-of-memory error handling"
- Previous message: Kasper Dupont: "Re: malloc's out-of-memory error handling"
- In reply to: dushkin_at_012.net.il: "shell commands return values"
- Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ]
Relevant Pages
|
