http://www.perlmonks.org?node_id=607448

marlboroguy58 has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

hi, i have a script which extracts data from a flat file, formats it and populates that data into an Excel sheet. I noticed that if the flat file is small, the script runs and exits with code 0, but if there is a lot of data the same script populates some part of the data and exits with code 255. i m not a perl expert, but think that the perl.exe is losing the CPU time and hence exiting...not sure.. i m using windows XP professional. once i run the script there will be 2 processes running perl.exe EXCEL.exe as soon i run the script i set the priority of the perl.exe process to "real time", the script runs succesfully, but with the default priority it exits with code 255. how do i prevent the script from coming out...is there a way i can set the priority of the script from within the script..

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Re: EXIT CODE 255
by roboticus (Chancellor) on Mar 30, 2007 at 11:53 UTC
      Reviewing this, I suggest a couple of minor modifications to meet the OP requirements:
      start /realtime perl theprogram.pl

      -M

      Free your mind

        Moron:

        Ha, ha! That's quite correct++. When I read the original post (OP), it made me start the google search because I have a similar problem. So my response answers my problem rather than the question in the OP.

        Thanks for the catch, Moron.

        ...roboticus

Re: EXIT CODE 255
by sgifford (Prior) on Mar 30, 2007 at 15:14 UTC
    The priority of the process shouldn't cause it to exit, unless there's some time limit in the program. To figure out why it's existing, try running it from a command shell, and see if it prints a helpful error message before exiting. If that doesn't help, try adding error messages in the various places that it exits, adding debugging messages in the code, and/or running it under the debugger.

    Good luck!