text_combined: zefram hzyozefyshorg jimwoodworth wrote running perl 587 unix environment found perls system command seems discard portion path environment variable containing tilde pointing persons home directory tildes dont meaning path tildes referring home directories purely shell feature inherent part unix want put home directory path need get tilde expanded first shells help like zsh echo homezefram zsh fooaoeu zsh echo foo aoeuhomezefram generally metacharacter start word zsh echo aoeu aoeu shells wont magic expansionaftercoloninvariable case say home instead shell expand home anywhere word zsh echo aoeuhome aoeuhomezefram note literal characters home useful path need get actual delimited pathname path home merely ways referring pathname shell zefram wed 06 aug 2008 204930 0100 perl 46557 perl system command trouble path env variable