`perl`

Runs a Perl script and returns its output and exit status.

Category: Environment and Settings > System Commands

Syntax

[result, status] = perl(scriptfile)

Runs the script and returns what it printed and its exit code.

[result, status] = perl(scriptfile, arg1, ..., argN)

Passes the arguments to the script on its command line.

Description

perl is a thin wrapper over the system Perl interpreter. It calls perl scriptfile args and captures the output as a character vector. A Perl installation must be available on the machine; it is not bundled.

Input arguments

scriptfile: Path of the Perl script. A file that does not exist is an error.
arg1, ..., argN: Character vectors passed as command-line arguments.

Output arguments

result: Text the script wrote to standard output.
status: Exit code of the interpreter; 0 means success.

Example

Run a one-line script

fid = fopen('hello.pl', 'w');
fprintf(fid, 'print "hello from perl\\n";');
fclose(fid);
[result, status] = perl('hello.pl');
disp(strtrim(result))
disp(status)
delete('hello.pl')

Output

hello from perl
     0

perl