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If I run a Perl script from a command prompt (c:\windows\system32\cmd.exe), how can I exit the command prompt after the script finishes executing.

I tried system("exit 0") inside the Perl script but that doesn't exit the cmd prompt shell from where the Perl script is running.

I also tried exit; command in the Perl script, but that doesn't work either.

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  • In bash, you'd invoke the perl script with "exec foo.pl". Commented Jan 12, 2010 at 13:47
  • Sorry if i forgot to mention, i am running it in Windows :-) Commented Jan 12, 2010 at 13:51
  • This may be difficult to accomplish; the key is to send a SIGHUP signal to the parent process, but at least in ActiveState Perl, getppid() is unimplemented. Commented Jan 12, 2010 at 13:55
  • Looks like we have the following approaches : [1] If i am opening the command shell only for running the perl script, then i can do cmd.exe /C perl myscript.pl or start.exe /B perl myscript.pl [2] If i am not already in any command shell and i just want to invoke the perl script, then i can write a batch file which will invoke the script and then call exit. like : perl myscript.pl; exit; Thanks!! Commented Jan 12, 2010 at 14:32

5 Answers 5

Reset to default
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Try to run the Perl script with a command line like this:

perl script.pl & exit

The ampersand will start the second command after the first one has finished. You can also use && to execute the second command only if the first succeeded (error code is 0).

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2 Comments

No it is not, look here: microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/…
@Noufal: In UNIX shells, the command separator is ; not & (which backgrounds a job).
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Have you tried cmd.exe /C perl yourscript.pl ?

According to cmd.exe /? /C carries out the command specified by string and then terminates.

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2 Comments

For that matter, you can just run perl yourscript.pl and leave cmd.exe out of it entirely.
On Windows 10, if I start Command Prompt, and only type perl - which will run nothing, how do I close the Command Prompt window that is still open? Tried quit bye exit all to no avail.
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If you're starting the command shell just to run the perl script, the answer by Arkaitz Jimenez should work (I voted for it.)

If not, you can create a batch file like runmyscript.bat, with content:

@echo off
perl myscript.pl
exit

The exit will end the shell session (and as a side effect, end the batch script itself.)

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3

You can start the program in a new window using the START Dos command. If you call that with /B then no additional window is created. Then you can call EXIT to close the current window.

Would that do the trick?

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0

You can send a signal to the parent shell from Perl:

 kill(9,$PARENT_PID);`

Unfortunately, the getppid() function is not implemented in Perl on windows so you'll have to find out the parent shell PID via some other means. Also, signal #9 might not be the best choice.

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2 Comments

Do you even have a SIGKILL (signal no. 9) on windows?
@Noufal: I am sure SIGKILL (as sent from perl) does it job on windows; not sure how it is implemented though

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