thanks that works (with system() instead of backticks - for any reason I do not get dir output with backticks.

I tried it with the CMD I would use and it does not stop after 2 seconds.

use warnings;
use strict;

my $time = 2;
my $cmd = 'dir';
my $check = 1;
my $output;

print "check is $check\n";

eval {
        local $SIG{ALRM} = sub { die 'timed out'; };
        alarm $time;

            my $cmd_1 = "perl hello.pl"; # see hello.pl code below"
            
            open (CMD, "$cmd_1 2>&1|") or warn ("!!! Can't run program
+: $!\n");
            
            while (my $line = <CMD>)
            {
                print $line;
            }
            close CMD;

        sleep 4;

        $check++;
        alarm 0;
};

if ($@ && $@ =~ /timed out/){
    print "damn command timed out!\n";
}
else {
    print "$output\n";
}

print "check is now $check\n";
[download]

hello.pl

use strict;
use warnings;

$| = 1;

print "Hello World\n";
print "Sleeping 1000 seconds\n";

for (1 .. 1000) {
    sleep 1;
    print ".\n";
}
[download]

Any idea why this does not work?