the issue i'm having is that perl only seems to allow an app to have an
'exit' value of a short int. i need to return values that might be multiple
arrarys. should i simply write the perl return values into an output file,
and read the output vars from the output file in the php file...
I believe that PHP has facilities for executing external processes and saving the text of the output (I've done just a sprinkling of PHP, so I'm limited there). But if that is the case, there is nothing preventing you from having the Perl application print out the desired data in a structured format (comma-separated values, tab-separated, or even mock-XML) and having the PHP then parse it. Indeed, if you output it as XML, I believe that PHP has classes built-in that would allow you to effectively go straight to having a DOM representation of the data.
Randy
--
rjray@blackperl.com http://www.rjray.org http://www.svsm.org
Always code as if the guy who ends up maintaining your code will be a violent
psychopath who knows where you live. -- Rick Osborne