How to call Perl functions from Shell script? 1

[volcano]

Hi, I have a PERL program, say "abclib.pl" which contains a function named "CONVERT". How can I call this function in my shell script "abc.sh"? The function requires an argument as input and returns a string. I would appreciate it if you could give me some hints.

 

[p5wizard]

You could write a perl program that loads your perl library and as main program only drives your function, and then call that program from the shell script.

But you'll end up with re-interpreting the perl program (and your library) everytime you want to run the function. Not really desirable.

Perhaps write your whole shell program in perl. Or write a shell function to replace the perl function. What exactly does the program do? And the perl CONVERT function?




HTH,

p5wizard

 

[volcano]

hi, thanks for your reply. In fact that PERL program is a third party program downloaded from

http://www.mandarintools.com/

It provides a function to return the Chinese encoding from an input string/file. Therefore I have to call its function from a shell script. Any idea?

 

[feherke]

Hi

If you do not need that file as is, rename it to abclib.pm, put an [tt][highlight white]1;[/highlight][/tt] at the end of file, then :

perl -Mabclib -e "CONVERT(argument)"

Feherke.

http://rootshell.be/~feherke/

 

[p5wizard]

so if you have your string in var1 in your shell script

var="text_to_be_converted"
perl -Mabclib -e "CONVERT(${var})"

provided you modify the perl file as per feherke's suggestion

HTH,

p5wizard

 

[volcano]

Hi, so wonderful to have such simple way to do it! BTW, do you mean I should add "1;" (exclude double quotes) at end of the abclib.pm? May I know why I have to do so? Thank you.

 

[feherke]

Hi

In facts, the [tt]1;[/tt] is needed if you add [tt][highlight white]package abclib;[/highlight][/tt] too, at the begin of the file. In this case a return value is required. But in this case I think will work without [tt]package[/tt] and [tt]1[/tt] too.

Feherke.

http://rootshell.be/~feherke/