Re (tilly) 1: Coping with a large family (interprocess communication)

[tilly]

It sounds like you want something like IO::Select.

Also note that you will want to properly close the filehandle when you are done, and then do a waitpid to "reap" the child, else you will get zombies. (That is the nickname for a process whose useful life is over, but it has to linger to tell its parent its return code.)