#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
#this will cover running "terminal style" commands

#the ` operator can be used if you want to capture the output of a system command.

my $commandResult = `whoami`; #store

print "\nHello " . $commandResult . "\n\n"; #use

#if you dont want to caputure the output (and the out put will goto the shell)
# use system(cmd1;cmd2) notice u can run more then one command;
system("cd ~/;ls");

#if you want to check for errors (some programs you run can fail) use an if
#the if looks backwards because programs return 0 if the complete sucessfully
if (system("fail")) #not a command
{
	print "\n\nfail\n"; 
}