Strange command run 2

[bluedragon2]

I run the command in UNIX:

ls -l filename | awk '{print $5}'

and get the file size returned.

I run this in perl:

$size = `ls -l filename | awk '{print $5}'`;

and get all the information about the file in the variable (ie $size equals -rwx------ 1 owner group 12300 /filename)

Does antone know why that is happening?

Thanks

Blue

If I wasn't Blue, I would just be a Dragon...

 

[bluedragon2]

Just a note, I got around it by putting ls -l filename into an array and spliting out the filesize.



Blue

If I wasn't Blue, I would just be a Dragon...

 

[sampsonr]

The backticks don't protect the dollar sign inside the expression. The result is that the $5 evaluates as the 5th pattern match (probably null) is passed to the shell that way.
You need to escape the dollar sign to make it work the way you expect.

$size = `ls -l filename | awk '{print \$5}'`;

 

[icrf]

Read this (scroll down to qx/STRING/):

http://www.perldoc.com/perl5.8.0/pod/perlop.html#Regexp-Quote-Like-Operators

The short is you can make a backtick-like execute statement without interpolation if you need.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
...but I'm just a C man trying to see the light

 

[bluedragon2]

Thanks...



Blue

If I wasn't Blue, I would just be a Dragon...