I can't see anything obviously wrong with his code (except not checking the result of opening the log file and the last close is incorrect), but here's his code so others can look at it:
#!perl
$program = "c:\\progdir\\bin\\proggie.exe";
$dstfile = "d:\\scripts\\log\\archive\\proggie.log";
$arg0 = "\"Blah.Blech.>\"";
$timeout = 60;
$starttime = time;
open( PRG, "$program $arg0 |") || die "Couldn't open PRG: $!\n";
open (LF, ">$finaldest");
while (<PRG>) {
print LF "$_";
$difftime = time - $starttime;
last if ($difftime > $timeout);
}
close (LF);
close (RVRD);
Tip to the anonymous monk: If you include your code in <CODE> tags, it will get formatted correctly.