use strict;
use IPC::Open2;

my $pid = open2 (\*RDRFH, \*WTRFH, '/usr/bin/wc', '-c')
  or die "Couldn't open pipe to wc: $!";

if ($pid) {
  my $string = "shoes and ships and sealing wax";
  print WTRFH $string;
  close (WTRFH);
  my $len = <RDRFH>;
  $len =~ s/^\s+//;
  print "length: $len";
  close (RDRFH);
}