Should I escape shell arguments in Perl?

Question

When using system() calls in Perl, do you have to escape the shell args, or is that done automatically?

The arguments will be user input, so I want to make sure this

Answer 1

If you use system "$cmd @args" (a string), then you have to escape the arguments because a shell is invoked.

Fortunately, for double quoted strings, only four characters need escaping:

"    - double quote
$    - dollar
@    - at symbol
\    - backslash