can we source a shell script in perl script

Question

can we source a shell script in the perl script??

Example: Program 1:

cat test1.sh
#!/bin/ksh
DATE=/bin/date

program 2:

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Answer 1

Uhm.. is the below cheating?

#!/bin/sh
. ./test1.sh # source the test script
echo Bash says $DATE
export DATE;      # KEY to have the below Perl bit see $ENV{DATE}
perl <<'ENDPERL';
    print "Perl says $ENV{DATE}\n";
ENDPERL

The problem is that sourcing the sh file may do whatever, and not just assign value X to variable Y...