[mh] Perl issue with system call

[Rob <ma...@ya...>]

Trying to write a program to monitor phone bluetooth presence to arm security
and to run within MH.  Intent is to be able to adjust ping rate to conserve
battery on phone if at home.  I'm not too sharp on Perl so I may be missing a
STDOUT flush trick or something similar.  As long as I call the l2ping using the
system(l2ping) function I get the correct response from the code.  However, the
output from system() goes to STDOUT and I need to use it within the code.  If I
use the backtick operators `l2ping`, the first response is correct and then all
subsequent calls have the same response regardless of the phone bluetooth status.

Any help appreciated.

Code is here and I have inserted indented comments to show where the bluetooth
on phone is turned on and off:

#!/usr/bin/perl

my $ISHERE = `/usr/bin/l2ping -c 2 00:17:83:A1:93:B1 2>&1`;
my $test;

sleep(30);
$test=($ISHERE);
print("The output from the backtick operators is \n $test \n");
sleep(30);
print("The output from the system call is \n");
system('/usr/bin/l2ping -c 2 00:17:83:A1:93:B1 2>&1');
print("\n");

Following is output from the code after starting Misterhouse

10/05/10 08:00:57 PM Organizer: Reading updated organizer todo file
10/05/10 08:00:57 PM Evaluating code organizer_tasks
	Misterhouse is up and phone bluetooth is on
The output from the backtick operators is
 Ping: 00:17:83:A1:93:B1 from 00:0A:3A:7C:78:5A (data size 44) ...
94 bytes from 00:17:83:A1:93:B1 id 0 time 49.81ms
94 bytes from 00:17:83:A1:93:B1 id 1 time 24.73ms
2 sent, 2 received, 0% loss

The output from the system call is
Ping: 00:17:83:A1:93:B1 from 00:0A:3A:7C:78:5A (data size 44) ...
94 bytes from 00:17:83:A1:93:B1 id 0 time 88.74ms
94 bytes from 00:17:83:A1:93:B1 id 1 time 81.71ms
2 sent, 2 received, 0% loss
	Here I turn the  phone bluetooth off
The output from the backtick operators is
 Ping: 00:17:83:A1:93:B1 from 00:0A:3A:7C:78:5A (data size 44) ...
94 bytes from 00:17:83:A1:93:B1 id 0 time 49.81ms
94 bytes from 00:17:83:A1:93:B1 id 1 time 24.73ms
2 sent, 2 received, 0% loss

The output from the system call is
Can't connect: Host is down
	Here I turn the phone bluetooth back on
The output from the backtick operators is
 Ping: 00:17:83:A1:93:B1 from 00:0A:3A:7C:78:5A (data size 44) ...
94 bytes from 00:17:83:A1:93:B1 id 0 time 49.81ms
94 bytes from 00:17:83:A1:93:B1 id 1 time 24.73ms
2 sent, 2 received, 0% loss

The output from the system call is
Ping: 00:17:83:A1:93:B1 from 00:0A:3A:7C:78:5A (data size 44) ...
94 bytes from 00:17:83:A1:93:B1 id 0 time 44.37ms
94 bytes from 00:17:83:A1:93:B1 id 1 time 30.69ms
2 sent, 2 received, 0% loss