 <p>I'm quite new on that and I don't know if I am understanding your question, but why you don't use "backticks" instead of "system"? It would let you store the output in a variable and then you can do with this variable whatever you want.</p> <p>About backticks: <a href="http://stackoverflow.com/questions/799968/whats-the-difference-between-perls-backticks-system-and-exec">What&#39;s the difference between Perl&#39;s backticks, system, and exec?</a></p>