External programs

If possible, pass your arguments as a list, rather than a single string.

This makes sure that nothing goes wrong in the shell if or $file2 have spaces or other special characters.

XXX Discuss lower 8-bits of return code.

XXX Discuss running through a pipe

Backticks (``) and qx() operator return the output of the program

You'll need to check the error code in $!.

If you're using backticks or , prefer or IPC::Open3 instead, since they'll give you the same argument control and allow you to capture the output as well.

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