print "before the pipe\n"; open $old_stdout, ">&STDOUT" or die "open: $!"; local(*WH); pipe $rh, WH; open STDOUT, ">&WH" or die "open: $!"; STDOUT->blocking(0); # write something to the pipe # and have some fork/exec'ed process write to the pipe (via stdout) if( fork() ) { open( STDOUT, ">&", $old_stdout ) or die "open: $!"; print STDERR "I'm the parent\n"; sleep 3; } else { exec( 'echo fubar' ); exit( 0 ); } close WH; my $out = <$rh>; print "got from pipe: $out"; # $out is empty since fubar printed to the screen