On Jun 4, Kipp, James said: >$date = `date +%y%m%e`; >$backup_dest = "/backup/home/" . "$date" . "-monthly";
Needless quoting of $date, and there's no reason to separate $date from the rest of the string: $backup_dest = "/backup/home/$date-monthly"; >$archive_dest = "/backup/home/archives/" . "$date" . "-monthly"; >$backup_target = "/home/"; >$level = '0'; > >$cmd = "dump -$level -u -A $archive_dest -f $backup_dest -j 9 >$backup_target"; > >system ("$cmd") or die "command failed: $?"; The only thing you've changed is using system() instead of ``, which the OP says he has already tried; in addition, system() returns 0 on SUCCESS, not failure. system($cmd) == 0 or die "..."; or system($cmd) and die "..."; is proper. -- Jeff "japhy" Pinyan [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.pobox.com/~japhy/ RPI Acacia brother #734 http://www.perlmonks.org/ http://www.cpan.org/ ** Look for "Regular Expressions in Perl" published by Manning, in 2002 ** <stu> what does y/// stand for? <tenderpuss> why, yansliterate of course. [ I'm looking for programming work. If you like my work, let me know. ] -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]