#! perl -slw use strict; use threads; use threads::shared; $|++; our $N ||= 11; my $TIMEOUT = 10; my $extApp = q[ perl -lwe"$|++; print $_ and sleep 1 for 1 .. $ARGV[0]" ]; my @results :shared; my $pid :shared; async { $pid = open my $fh, "$extApp $N |" or die "$!, $^E"; @results = <$fh>; }->detach; kill 0, $pid while sleep 1 and $TIMEOUT--; kill 3, $pid and warn 'Command timed out' if $TIMEOUT; print "command return \n'@results'"; __END__ c:\test>junk6 -N=8 command return '1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 ' c:\test>junk6 -N=10 command return '1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 ' c:\test>junk6 -N=12 Command timed out at c:\test\junk6.pl line 21. command return '1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 '