>> I have the following script which opens a machine.txt file, with format:

>> machine1
>> machine2
>> machine3
>> etc

>> ====================================================
>> #!perl
>> open (INPUT,"machine.txt") or die "cant open machine.txt";
>> @computers = <INPUT>;

> This statement reads ALL lines of machine.txt into @computers.  There
> is nothing left to read at this point.

>> while (<INPUT>)  {
>> chomp;
>> push @computers, $_;}

> This block is therefore a no-op.  There is nothing left to read, so
> this loop is never executed.

>> foreach $a (@computers) {

> If you're just going to process the data line-by-line anyway, it makes
> no sense to bother reading the entire thing into an array.  Get rid of
> the first statement, keep the second block, and put the following code
> into that block.  So:

> while (my $computer = <INPUT>) {

> (I changed your $a to $computer, because $a and $b are "special" in
> Perl, and should generally only be used for sort subroutines)

>>  if ($a eq "dell101\n") {
>>             print "hi there simon\n";
>>      print `notepad`;
>>         }
>>  else {
>>      print "you are not my machine\n";
>>         }

>> Is there any way to spawn other processes, but continue execution
>> of your original script?

> Yes.  Fork a new process, and exec the program in the new child
> process.

> perldoc -f fork
> perldoc -f exec

> if (fork()) { #parent
>   do_parent_stuff();
> } else { #child
>   exec 'notepad.exe';
> }

> Depending on your shell, you might also be able to just put a '&' at
> the end of the command you want to run, to tell the shell to run the
> process in the background.  I have no idea how or if that works in
> Windows, however.

> Paul Lalli