[Nottingham-pm] [Fwd: Compiling Software In A Perl Script]

[Robert Postill]

Hi,

I'm developing an installer for a PHP-based app at work after getting 
sick and tired of building the thing by hand.  What I want is to collate 
the output from the compilation of Apache, PHP and MySQL into a single 
point, check that it's all OK and then save the output for later support 
perusal.  All of these apps are standard configure && make && make 
install jobs.  I need to make sure they have the right flags set (e.g. 
mbstring and LDAP support) and I also need to make sure they all land in 
one place (so uninstallation is a matter of rm -rf <install_dir>).  Now 
in classic Perl noob mode I'm thinking of using the system(command) to 
get my operations run.  Then redirecting the output to a file so I can 
check the actions succeeded.  So my questions are:
1. This is portable to AIX and the more niche unices right?
2. Is there a more efficient way of collecting the output rather than 
directing the stderr and stdout to a file?
3.  Does this sound like high order lunacy to anyone for some reason?

Robert.