Using Perl 5.8.8 on Linux, need the output of a perl 'system' command to be hidden. The command in my code is:
system("wget", "$url", "-Omy_folder/$date-$target.html", "--user-agent=$useragent"); I've tried using > /dev/null 2>&1 in different places in the system command, like this:
system("wget", "$url", "-Omy_folder/$date-$target.html", "--user-agent=$useragent","> /dev/null 2>&1"); Can anyone help me with where the redirection to /dev/null should be?
When you call system() with more than one arg, you are telling perl to pass it directly to one of the exec*() calls, so it will not be called with a shell. The shell is the thing that understands file redirection. Try this:
system("wget $url -Omy_folder/$date-$target.html --user-agent=$useragent >/dev/null 2>&1"); Note that this is technically less secure than passing it straight to exec.
For quoting use String::ShellQuote, or just implement the logic yourself:
sub sq { my $str = shift; if (!$str) { $str = "''"; } else { $str =~ s|'|'\\''|g; $str = "'$str'"; $str =~ s|^''||; $str =~ s|''$||; } return($str); } $useragent = sq($useragent); system("wget $url -Omy_folder/$date-$target.html --user-agent=$useragent >/dev/null 2>&1"); Also, to make this a little more sys-admin-y and a little less programmer-y, have you considered using the -q option to wget instead of jumping through the shell/file redirection hoops?
