How can I use the shell's process substitution in Perl's system()?

Question

Why does this line of Perl break?

system("paste <\( cut -f2 $file \) $file2 > $fileout");

What's the correct way to do it?

Answer 1

This is generally caused because Perl is using sh instead of bash to execute the system command. The quick answer is to include bash -c at the start of your command. A better answer is here:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/571368/how-can-i-use-bash-syntax-in-perls-system