use strict;
use warnings;
use Time::HiRes qw(time);
use POSIX qw(strftime);

timestamp();
my $fred = `echo plenty of fish`;
timestamp();
warn $fred;
timestamp();
open my $fh, 'echo ' . $fred . ' |';
$fred = <$fh>;
close $fh;
timestamp();
warn $fred;
timestamp();

sub timestamp {
    my $t = time;
    my $date = strftime "%Y%m%d %H:%M:%S", localtime $t;
    $date .= sprintf ".%03d", ($t-int($t))*1000; 
    print $date, "\n";
}