Perl to exec a program with arguments containing "@"

Question

Am a newbie in Perl and need help with a small problem

Situation:

1. I have to execute a command line program through perl.
2. The arguments to this command line are email addresses
3. These email addresses are passed to me through another module.

Problem:

I have written the code to create the argument list from these email addresses but am having problem in running exec().

NOTE: If I pass hardcoded strings with escaped "@" character to the exec() as command args,it works perfectly.

1. Sub creating cmd args map

   sub create_cmd_args {
       my($self, $msginfo) = @_;
       my @gd_args_msg  = ('--op1');
       my $mf = $msginfo->sender_smtp;
       $mf =~ s/@/\\@/ig; ## Tried escaping @, incorrect results.
       push @gd_args_msg, '-f="'.$mf.'"';
   
       for my $r (@{$msginfo->per_recip_data}) {
       my $recip = $r->recip_addr_smtp;
       $recip =~ s/@/\\@/ig; ## Tried escaping @, incorrect results.
       push @gd_args_msg, '-r="'.($recip).'"';
     }
     return @gd_args_msg;
   }
   

2. Sub that uses this args map to exec the program

   sub check {
     my($self, $msginfo) = @_;
     my $cmd = $g_command;
     my @cmd_args = create_cmd_args($self, $msginfo);
     exec($cmd, @cmd_args); ### ******* fails here
   }
   

3. Sample run:

   INPUT:
     sender_smtp: <ashish@isthisreal.com>
     receiver_smtp: <areyouarealperson@somedomain.com>
   

Could someone please guide me what is wrong here?

Answer 1

As an argument to a command in the shell,

-f="<ashish@isthisreal.com>"

causes the the string

-f=<ashish@isthisreal.com>

to be passed to the program. Your program passes

-f="<ashish\@isthisreal.com>"

to the program. The problem isn't the @; the problem is the " and \ you are adding.

my $mf = $msginfo->sender_smtp;
push @gd_args_msg, "-f=$mf";   # Assuming $mf is <ashish@isthisreal.com>