implement bash command cd in perl

Question

I tried to implement a bash command system("cd /home/user") in perl , but I get an error saying

Can't exec "cd": No such file or directory at temp.pl 

Is there a way to change the current working directory to the specified one , and the change remains after the perl script has exited also.

Answer 1

No. A process can't change its parent process's current working directory. Shells implement commands like cd as "builtins", meaning they're a function in the shell itself, and not a separate process that gets run.

You can change the current directory in perl using chdir($dir), and that change will be inherited by child processes — but it won't be passed along to the parent process.