Calling and interacting with external executable

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

I have an executable that I need to call from my Perl script. It is pretty simple when run from the command line:

~$:/path/executable

"Here is the script. Please choose option 1 or 2"

1

"Thank you. Please provide the input file name:"

myInputFile.txt

(script runs and output file appears in the directory)
~$:
[download]

I can't figure out how to supply the requested information from within the Perl script.

#I have tried
my $program = "path-to-executable";
system($program); #The script hangs here until I manually enter the re
+quested info at the command line
system("1");
system("myInputFile.txt");

#Have also tried
my $program = "path-to-executable";
my $i = `$program`; #Script hangs here and nothing appears on the comm
+and line at all
$i = `1`;
$i = `myInputFile.txt`;
[download]

I have even tried adding sleep() commands but that does not fix the problem. Is there a way to let my script know it needs to keep talking to the executable?

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