Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uunet!ateng!tct!chip
From: chip@tct.uucp (Chip Salzenberg)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl
Subject: Re: Command substitution or Common novice bug
Message-ID: <26124BA2.56FE@tct.uucp>
Date: 29 Mar 90 17:53:38 GMT
References: <1460@kuling.UUCP>
Organization: ComDev/TCT, Sarasota, FL
Lines: 28

According to jand@kuling.UUCP (Jan Dj{rv):
>Should command substitution work inside double quotes?

Unix shells distinguish between "`command`" and "command" because
sometimes you feel like a nut... er, sometimes you want to keep
spaces, tabs, etc. and sometimes you want to collapse them.  Given
Perl's strength in string manipulation, whitespace collapse is better
written explicitly:

    Shell		Perl
    -----		----
    x="`ls`"		$x = `ls`; chop($x);
    x=`ls`		$x = `ls`; chop($x); $x =~ s/[\s\n]+/ /g;

As for the interpolation in quoted strings, that's easy to simulate:

	sub B {
		local($x);
		$x = `@_`;
		chop($x);
		$x;
	}
	print "Today is " . &B("date") . ", or so Unix claims.\n";

Pack another jack huster,
-- 
Chip Salzenberg at ComDev/TCT   <chip%tct@ateng.com>, <uunet!ateng!tct!chip>
          "The Usenet, in a very real sense, does not exist."