Re: Perl / Apache 2 / Alarms

Let me see if I understand correctly:

You have a script that you want to launch some other scripts, then have it wait around a bit and then exit, right?

You need to fork off those other processes. The easy way to do that in unix is to stick a '&' at the end of the command. Using fork() and exec() is also a popular combination.

See perlfork & perlipc.

unix example:

system("ls -l > ls.out");  # you gonna have to wait
system("ls -l > ls.out &"); # the command goes into the
                            # background
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fork & exec example

my $pid = fork;
die "Fork failed me!\n" if !defined($pid);
if ( $pid == 0 ) {
   # I'm the child!
   exec("ls -l > ls.out");
}
# I'm the parent!
sleep 5; #or whatever
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