Hi everyone, above is an example that i am using to call another perl script from the current perl script.

I have two concerns :
1) This there a better way of achieving the same purpose ( ie call another perl script from a perl script)?

2) Notice there is an exit command in my calling script. Will the exit command be executed only after B.pl is completed OR it will be executed immediately B.pl is called?

Yes. Use require().

I think unless your B.pl runs itself in background mode (such as that of daemons, for instance), the perl process for B.pl will not exit before it completes, and hence system() in your calling script will not return (note that system() just executes a perl process in the same way as other processes). If the exit() occurs after system(), you can assume it will only be executed when B.pl exits for whatever reason.

Did you try to find out whether that is the case?

B.pl is not a background mode, its a normal user script.

i qoute from perldoc for system "...Does exactly the same thing as exec LIST , except that a fork is done first, and the parent process waits for the child process to complete...." So i can take it that my first script will wait for B.pl to finish before exiting.

the perldoc entry for exec says " ..The exec function executes a system command and never returns--". Therefore i can assume that after it calls B.pl, the calling script will exit.

My intention is not to wait for B.pl to finish, ( ie, runs B.pl and the caller script itself exit ) therefore i should use exec? Any draw backs?

I like to require any other files at the beginning of the main script then just call the routines in them as needed. This may or may not be the best way, but it works pretty well for me. By the way, if I remember correctly, I believe the file you're calling does not necessarily need the standard perl script header, does not have to end in "pl" or "cgi", and does not need executable permissions.

(main_file.pl)

#!/usr/bin/perl
require "other_file.pl";
&do_something;
&do_something_else;
exit;

(other_file.pl)

sub do_something{
print "Content-type: text/html\n\n";
print "ok";
}
sub do_something_else{
print "Content-type: text/html\n\n";
print "ok again";
}
1; # return true



I didn't test that script, but I know it's real close to what I do.