eval leaving processess behind

[leonidlm]

Hi All,
Just a small question. I am using the following code:

    eval {
        local $SIG{ALRM} = sub {die "Cant get node's time ($host)\n"};
        alarm 5;
        @out = qx {$cmd};
        
        if ($out[1] !~ /OVO Managed Node status :/) {
            print "Detected error for node $host\n";
        }
        alarm 0;
        
    };

My problem is that if in one iteration the timeout really worked the process run by qx is still will be running in the background! Is there a way of killing this process too right after the eval will finish?

[ikegami]

    my $cmd = ...;

    my $pid;
    my $fh;
    my @out;
    eval {
        local $SIG{ALRM} = sub { die "Timeout\n" };
        alarm 5;
        $pid = open($fh, '-|', $cmd)
           or die;
        @out = <$fh>;
        undef $fh;
        alarm 0;
    };
    kill TERM => $pid if defined($fh);

[leonidlm]

Very nice, thank you.
But is there a more "elegant way" of doing this ? In your solution I will fork another perl instance for each task, I am not sure it is the most efficient solution.

[ikegami]

q{perl -e'sleep 60*60'} was just the command I used for testing. You'd continue to use the same command as before. I've altered the post execute $cmd as your snippet did.