IPC::Cmd - finding and running system commands made easy
use IPC::Cmd qw[can_run run];
my $full_path = can_run('wget') or warn 'wget is not installed!';
### commands can be arrayrefs or strings ###
my $cmd = "$full_path -b theregister.co.uk";
my $cmd = [$full_path, '-b', 'theregister.co.uk'];
### in scalar context ###
my $buffer;
if( scalar run( command => $cmd,
verbose => 0,
buffer => \$buffer,
timeout => 20 )
) {
print "fetched webpage successfully: $buffer\n";
}
### in list context ###
my( $success, $error_code, $full_buf, $stdout_buf, $stderr_buf ) =
run( command => $cmd, verbose => 0 );
if( $success ) {
print "this is what the command printed:\n";
print join "", @$full_buf;
}
### check for features
print "IPC::Open3 available: " . IPC::Cmd->can_use_ipc_open3;
print "IPC::Run available: " . IPC::Cmd->can_use_ipc_run;
print "Can capture buffer: " . IPC::Cmd->can_capture_buffer;
### don't have IPC::Cmd be verbose, ie don't print to stdout or
### stderr when running commands -- default is '0'
$IPC::Cmd::VERBOSE = 0;
IPC::Cmd allows you to run commands, interactively if desired, platform independent but have them still work.
The can_run function can tell you if a certain binary is installed and if so where, whereas the run function can actually execute any of the commands you give it and give you a clear return value, as well as adhere to your verbosity settings.
Utility function that tells you if IPC::Run is available. If the verbose flag is passed, it will print diagnostic messages if IPC::Run can not be found or loaded.
Utility function that tells you if IPC::Open3 is available. If the verbose flag is passed, it will print diagnostic messages if IPC::Open3 can not be found or loaded.
Utility function that tells you if IPC::Cmd is capable of capturing buffers in it's current configuration.
can_run takes but a single argument: the name of a binary you wish to locate. can_run works much like the unix binary which or the bash command type, which scans through your path, looking for the requested binary .
Unlike which and type, this function is platform independent and will also work on, for example, Win32.
It will return the full path to the binary you asked for if it was found, or undef if it was not.
run takes 4 arguments:
This is the command to execute. It may be either a string or an array reference. This is a required argument.
See CAVEATS for remarks on how commands are parsed and their limitations.
This controls whether all output of a command should also be printed to STDOUT/STDERR or should only be trapped in buffers (NOTE: buffers require IPC::Run to be installed or your system able to work with IPC::Open3).
It will default to the global setting of $IPC::Cmd::VERBOSE, which by default is 0.
This will hold all the output of a command. It needs to be a reference to a scalar. Note that this will hold both the STDOUT and STDERR messages, and you have no way of telling which is which. If you require this distinction, run the run command in list context and inspect the individual buffers.
Of course, this requires that the underlying call supports buffers. See the note on buffers right above.
Sets the maximum time the command is allowed to run before aborting, using the built-in alarm() call. If the timeout is triggered, the errorcode in the return value will be set to an object of the IPC::Cmd::TimeOut class. See the errorcode section below for details.
Defaults to 0, meaning no timeout is set.
run will return a simple true or false when called in scalar context. In list context, you will be returned a list of the following items:
A simple boolean indicating if the command executed without errors or not.
If the first element of the return value (success) was 0, then some error occurred. This second element is the error message the command you requested exited with, if available. This is generally a pretty printed value of $? or $@. See perldoc perlvar for details on what they can contain. If the error was a timeout, the error message will be prefixed with the string IPC::Cmd::TimeOut, the timeout class.
This is an arrayreference containing all the output the command generated. Note that buffers are only available if you have IPC::Run installed, or if your system is able to work with IPC::Open3 -- See below). This element will be undef if this is not the case.
This is an arrayreference containing all the output sent to STDOUT the command generated. Note that buffers are only available if you have IPC::Run installed, or if your system is able to work with IPC::Open3 -- See below). This element will be undef if this is not the case.
This is an arrayreference containing all the output sent to STDERR the command generated. Note that buffers are only available if you have IPC::Run installed, or if your system is able to work with IPC::Open3 -- See below). This element will be undef if this is not the case.
See the HOW IT WORKS Section below to see how IPC::Cmd decides what modules or function calls to use when issuing a command.
Returns the character used for quoting strings on this platform. This is usually a ' (single quote) on most systems, but some systems use different quotes. For example, Win32 uses " (double quote).
You can use it as follows:
use IPC::Cmd qw[run QUOTE];
my $cmd = q[echo ] . QUOTE . q[foo bar] . QUOTE;This makes sure that foo bar is treated as a string, rather than two seperate arguments to the echo function.
__END__
run will try to execute your command using the following logic:
If you have IPC::Run installed, and the variable $IPC::Cmd::USE_IPC_RUN is set to true (See the GLOBAL VARIABLES Section) use that to execute the command. You will have the full output available in buffers, interactive commands are sure to work and you are guaranteed to have your verbosity settings honored cleanly.
Otherwise, if the variable $IPC::Cmd::USE_IPC_OPEN3 is set to true (See the GLOBAL VARIABLES Section), try to execute the command using IPC::Open3. Buffers will be available on all platforms except Win32, interactive commands will still execute cleanly, and also your verbosity settings will be adhered to nicely;
Otherwise, if you have the verbose argument set to true, we fall back to a simple system() call. We cannot capture any buffers, but interactive commands will still work.
Otherwise we will try and temporarily redirect STDERR and STDOUT, do a system() call with your command and then re-open STDERR and STDOUT. This is the method of last resort and will still allow you to execute your commands cleanly. However, no buffers will be available.
The behaviour of IPC::Cmd can be altered by changing the following global variables:
This controls whether IPC::Cmd will print any output from the commands to the screen or not. The default is 0;
This variable controls whether IPC::Cmd will try to use IPC::Run when available and suitable. Defaults to true if you are on Win32.
This variable controls whether IPC::Cmd will try to use IPC::Open3 when available and suitable. Defaults to true.
This variable controls whether run time warnings should be issued, like the failure to load an IPC::* module you explicitly requested.
Defaults to true. Turn this off at your own risk.
When using IPC::Open3 or system, if you provide a string as the command argument, it is assumed to be appropriately escaped. You can use the QUOTE constant to use as a portable quote character (see above). However, if you provide and Array Reference, special rules apply:
If your command contains Special Characters (< > | &), it will be internally stringified before executing the command, to avoid that these special characters are escaped and passed as arguments instead of retaining their special meaning.
However, if the command contained arguments that contained whitespace, stringifying the command would loose the significance of the whitespace. Therefor, IPC::Cmd will quote any arguments containing whitespace in your command if the command is passed as an arrayref and contains special characters.
When using IPC::Run, if you provide a string as the command argument, the string will be split on whitespace to determine the individual elements of your command. Although this will usually just Do What You Mean, it may break if you have files or commands with whitespace in them.
If you do not wish this to happen, you should provide an array reference, where all parts of your command are already separated out. Note however, if there's extra or spurious whitespace in these parts, the parser or underlying code may not interpret it correctly, and cause an error.
Example: The following code
gzip -cdf foo.tar.gz | tar -xf -should either be passed as
"gzip -cdf foo.tar.gz | tar -xf -"or as
['gzip', '-cdf', 'foo.tar.gz', '|', 'tar', '-xf', '-']But take care not to pass it as, for example
['gzip -cdf foo.tar.gz', '|', 'tar -xf -']Since this will lead to issues as described above.
Currently it is too complicated to parse your command for IO Redirections. For capturing STDOUT or STDERR there is a work around however, since you can just inspect your buffers for the contents.
Neither IPC::Run nor IPC::Open3 can interleave STDOUT and STDERR. For short bursts of output from a program, ie this sample:
for ( 1..4 ) {
$_ % 2 ? print STDOUT $_ : print STDERR $_;
}IPC::[Run|Open3] will first read all of STDOUT, then all of STDERR, meaning the output looks like 1 line on each, namely '13' on STDOUT and '24' on STDERR.
It should have been 1, 2, 3, 4.
This has been recorded in rt.cpan.org as bug #37532: Unable to interleave STDOUT and STDERR
IPC::Run, IPC::Open3
Thanks to James Mastros and Martijn van der Streek for their help in getting IPC::Open3 to behave nicely.
Please report bugs or other issues to <bug-ipc-cmd@rt.cpan.org>.
This module by Jos Boumans <kane@cpan.org>.
This library is free software; you may redistribute and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.