> So I wrote a Perl script that read in the file, combined it, and printed it out as a single line. Then I had my Java program call the Perl script through the

> So I wrote a Perl script that read in the file, combined it, and printed it out as a single line. Then I had my Java program call the Perl script through the command line, capture the printed output, and save that as the string. When I first started (in Python), I didn't understand what a function was, but I wanted my program to react differently depending on user input, and had some conception that I should be breaking my program up into files by purpose. So what I did to get it working was this: I named each file "$cmd.py", then I concatted the user's input with ".py", opened & read the file with the associated name, and ran the resulting string through exec() !! I came to this result incrementally by googling different aspects of the problem that I didn't know how to describe properly. If someone had been a jerk to me about it then, I probably would've been really self-conscious about it. But no one was a jerk, so I'm not ashamed: what I did is ridiculous and funny & I'm glad to be able to laugh about it now.