backtick problem

Hi, I've got a php script within which I call a perl program I wrote. I call the program like this: $output = /home/bounce/testsend.pl; print "<pre>$output</pre>"; now, testsend.pl uses backticks to call a few programs from the commandline. when it runs from the php script, i see the output of the perl program, but not the output from the stuff run in backticks (in perl) and the programs in the perl backticks don't run (they're supposed to send out email). If i su to the www user, and run testsend.pl, it runs perfectly. I tried adding putenv("HOME=/usr/home/"); putenv("USER=www"); to the php script before the backticks, but that didn't help. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Regards, Philip - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Philip Fibiger email: philip@colonize.com Programmer - Colonize.com phone: 607.256.1160x309 http://www.colonize.com "Unix is a set of tools for smart people"