can we source a shell script in perl script

Question

can we source a shell script in the perl script??

Example: Program 1:

cat test1.sh
#!/bin/ksh
DATE=/bin/date

program 2:

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Answer 1

I met a close need from the OP's in a project, where I needed to configure a Perl script (it could be any language, for that matter) by sourcing a shell script defining the environment.

I personally rarely use sourcing for anything else than configuration and environment setting (the only other good reason for sourcing I am aware of, is for importing functions in shell scripts, but I may be missing some creative usage).

My solution was to source the configuration script from a launcher script (in shell), and then to exec the Perl script in the same launcher script (replacing effectively the launcher script by the Perl script, thus avoiding to create a subprocess).

# configuration_script.sh
export MY_ENV_VAR1=value1
export MY_ENV_VAR2=value2

# launcher_script.sh
. configuration_script.sh # source the configuration
exec /path/to/main_script.pl "$@" # could be any other language here (Python, Tcl, Ruby, C, Java...)

The "$@" allows to pass the command line arguments from the launcher script to the main script.

It's then up to the main script author to retrieve the environment (e.g. with $ENV{MY_ENV_VAR1} in Perl).