handsomepete's Journal: Anyone know VMS?

I'm trying to figure out how to f$extract a filename from a flat text file and then run it as a .com procedure. If I take the variable I assigned to it i.e.:

$ task = f$extract(24,100,"''file'")

which returns something like my$disk:[some_dir.hp]comfile.com and then try to run it within the script in any fashion such as:

@''task'

it tries to run task.com instead of comfile.com. If I use @"''task'" it outputs the correct filename but puts quote around it making it invalid (" is an invalid character in a VMS filename). There must be a way (and hopefully an easy one at that) around this. Anyone?

Edit: Ok, had someone explain to me that it would just require one single quote in front of it (i.e. @'task), but was told that it would be better to spawn the tasks off anyways. *shrug*