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From: lwall@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV (Larry Wall)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl
Subject: Re: Novice Question: How is -e supposed to work?
Message-ID: <9165@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
Date: 16 Aug 90 21:15:09 GMT
References: <1990Aug16.070010.26529@morrow.stanford.edu>
Reply-To: lwall@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV (Larry Wall)
Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA
Lines: 35

In article <1990Aug16.070010.26529@morrow.stanford.edu> whenry@lindy.stanford.edu (homo obsolescensis) writes:
: 
: I a perl tyro and I am having trouble using the -e switch.  the man
: pages give the following example: (lets call this file "go")
: 
: 	#!/usr/bin/perl -pi.bak
: 	s/foo/bar/;
: 
: and intimate that the result of running go  on file bas will be a
: changed file bas.
: 
: however, when I try any of the following, the results are the same as
: if only the -p switch were set.  that is, the changes are printed to
: the screen only, not to the original file.
: 
: 	go bas
: 	go <bas
: 
: and of course
: 
: 	go bas >bas		or
: 	go <bas >bas
: just clobber bas
: 
: Do I misinterpret what is supposed to be happening?

	go bas

ought to work the way you expect.  The file bas should be renamed bas.bak
and a new file bas should be created.  Is your first line actually
#!/usr/bin/perl or is it possibly some longer pathname that happens
to be just long enough to wipe out the switch?  That's the only thing
I can think of, apart from mangled kits.

Larry