Good comments so far. Perl is a bit more powerful, meaning that you can do just about anything with it. It's also widely used for many things, and is C-ish in its syntax. So knowing perl is likely to give you more mileage personally. OTOH, bash is a bit simpler. When I've looked at doing the same thing in bash vs perl, the bash scripts tend to be a bit shorter and simpler (no files to open, etc). There is quite a lot you can do with bash once you learn what it's capable of. Given that your application is something that is done for the most part at the command line, I expect in this case that bash would be more suitable. I don't think that perl would buy you much of anything, and bash would probably be a little less coding. That's just my opinion though. ;) -- -Eric 'shubes' keith smith wrote: > > Well Shell looks like Chinese to me. I bet I can learn it as I have > learned a number of languages. I think knowing what to do [with Linux] > might be more difficult than learning a language. I did some PERL > scripting about 10 years ago. Seems simple enough. > > Since it is half a dozen of one or 6 of the other, I'm wondering which > would give me more mileage since I am currently doing PHP? > > ------------------------ > Keith Smith > > --- On *Wed, 5/19/10, James Finstrom //* > wrote: > > > From: James Finstrom > Subject: Re: PERL vs. Shell scripting for server automation. > To: "Main PLUG discussion list" > Date: Wednesday, May 19, 2010, 6:11 PM > > This is like asking bacon or gravy. It depends what flavor of fat you > are :). Do you know either language? Which are you more fluent in > > On 5/19/10, keith smith > wrote: > > > > Hi Everyone, > > > > I was looking at some examples on writing a back up script and > they are > > written in shell script. > > > > Now I'm wondering what would be better PERL or Shell scripting > for doing > > stuff like writing a backup script that might stop MySql, make a copy > > (dump?) , tar it and maybe move the tarball or place it on > another server? > > > > As you might have gathered from my last couple of questions I am > not a sys > > admin. I'm a programmer and am responsible for several servers, > so I guess > > I need to break down and learn a few more skills. > > > > Thanks in advance for your insight, advice, and help! > > > > ------------------------ > > > > Keith Smith > > > > > > > > -- > Sent from my mobile device > > James Finstrom > Rhino Equipment Corp. > http://rhinoequipment.com ~ http://postug.com > Phone: 1-877-RHINO-T1 ~ FAX: +1 (480) 961-1826 > Twitter: http://twitter.com/rhinoequipment > IP: guest@asterisk.rhinoequipment.com > > --------------------------------------------------- > PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us > > To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: > http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss > > --------------------------------------------------- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss