RE: [Sheflug] Unique temporary filename

[Barrie Bremner <xxxxx [at] xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>>>>> "Peter" == Peter Duffy <Peter.Duffy [at] supanet.net.uk> writes:

    Peter> On Wed, 2002-05-15 at 15:44, David Morris wrote:
    >> The Camel book doesn't mention a mktemp though... isn't that
    >> part of the C runtime (says he dredging the outermost reaches
    >> of his feeble mind)?

    Peter> It's just a Linux system command (I was going to say Unix,
    Peter> but I don't know how many other Unixen have it.) Try "man
    Peter> mktemp". From perl, you'd probably do something on the
    Peter> lines of: 'retcode=system("mktemp <arguments>")' and then
    Peter> check $retcode to see that it worked.

Well, almost...if you want to really check system, fork and the like:

	system($command, @args) == 0 or warn "Doh!: $!";

	my $rc = $?;

	my $exit_value  = $rc >> 8;
	my $signal_num  = $rc & 127;
	my $dumped_core = $rc & 128;

Or if you just want the return code:

        my $exit_value = $rc / 256;   

I know of one or two programs that'll dump core, yet return a 0 status
and touch the output file - you really do have to check all this lot.
I don't like those programs very much :-)

See perldoc -f system


Also, what's the point in forking a child to make a filename using a
command that may or may not be present on whatever platform you're
running, when it's pretty quick to do it in Perl?

Cheers.

Baz.
-- 
Barrie J. Bremner		OpenPGP public key ID: F78CEE08
baz [at] barriebremner.com	http://barriebremner.com/


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