Sender: rich AT phekda DOT freeserve DOT co DOT uk
Message-ID: <3A9EB7CA.1A187B01@phekda.freeserve.co.uk>
Date: Thu, 01 Mar 2001 20:57:46 +0000
From: Richard Dawe <rich AT phekda DOT freeserve DOT co DOT uk>
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To: Daniel Barker <sokal AT holyrood DOT ed DOT ac DOT uk>,
        DJGPP newsgroup <djgpp AT delorie DOT com>
Subject: Re: Penalty for immature language (PERL/BASH)
References: <Pine DOT SOL DOT 4 DOT 21 DOT 0102282310120 DOT 12698-100000 AT holyrood DOT ed DOT ac DOT uk>
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Reply-To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com

Hello.

Daniel Barker wrote:
> I have encountered a strange and repeatable crash whilst trying to teach
> myself PERL. Possibly it's a joke (but not by me)!
> 
> DJGPP Packages:
> BASH bsh203b
> PERL perl552b
> 
> Operating system:
> Windows 98 (heavily updated)
> 
> At the BASH prompt, I launch the following PERL script, prog.pl:
> 
> while(<>)
> {
> `$_`
> }
> 
> If I give this a single line consisting of the word "poo", BASH performs
> an illegal instruction.

I tried to reproduce your problem using the DJGPP port of Perl 5.005_02
(perl --version, I think it's the same as yours) and bash 2.03, 2.04 on
Windows 98 SE. It didn't crash for me in these variants:

    perl -n -e '`$_`'
    perl -e 'while(<>) { `$_` }'
    perl prog.pl

with prog.pl containing your program. I tried in a directory with no
spaces (c:/temp) and one with spaces (c:/Program\ Files). I get "Bad
program of filename" errors.

Do you only have DJGPP's port of Perl installed? What does 'type -a perl'
display from bash? Maybe there's something bogus set in your environment?
What does 'env' display from bash?

Bye,

-- 
Richard Dawe <richdawe AT bigfoot DOT com> http://www.bigfoot.com/~richdawe/ 

"The soul is the mirror of an indestructible universe."
--- Gottfried W. Leibniz