How do I cd into a directory using perl?

Question

I am trying the following.. system \"cd directoryfolder\" but it fails, also I try system \"exit\" to leave the terminal but it fails.

Answer 1

I always like mention File::chdir for cd-ing. It allows changes to the working directory which are local to the enclosing block.

As Peder mentions, your script is basically all system calls tied together with Perl. I present a more Perl implementation.

"wget download.com/download.zip"; 
system "unzip download.zip" 
chdir('download') or die "$!"; 
system "sh install.sh";

becomes:

#!/usr/bin/env perl

use strict;
use warnings;

use LWP::Simple; #provides getstore
use File::chdir; #provides $CWD variable for manipulating working directory
use Archive::Extract;

#download
my $rc = getstore('download.com/download.zip', 'download.zip');
die "Download error $rc" if ( is_error($rc) );

#create archive object and extract it
my $archive = Archive::Extract->new( archive => 'download.zip' );
$archive->extract() or die "Cannot extract file";

{
  #chdir into download directory
  #this action is local to the block (i.e. {})
  local $CWD = 'download';
  system "sh install.sh";
  die "Install error $!" if ($?);
}

#back to original working directory here

This uses two non-core modules (and Archive::Extract has only been core since Perl v5.9.5) so you may have to install them. Use the cpan utility (or ppm on AS-Perl) to do this.