my $queue = []; sub REAP { my $kidpid; print STDERR "HANDLER\n"; while(($kidpid = waitpid(-1,WNOHANG)) > 0) { print STDERR "reaped $kidpid\n"; push @$queue, [ $kidpid, $? ]; } print STDERR "/HANDLER\n"; } $SIG{'CHLD'} = \&REAP; `echo 1`; my $pid = fork(); print STDERR "FORK CHILD $pid\n" if $pid; exit unless ($pid); print STDERR "before sleep\n"; sleep 2; print STDERR "after sleep\n"; print STDERR "DONE\n"; __END__ HANDLER /HANDLER FORK CHILD 29104 before sleep HANDLER reaped 29104 /HANDLER after sleep DONE