Using open() for IPC Perl's basic open() statement can also be used for unidirectional interprocess communication by either appending or prepending a pipe symbol to the second argument to open(). Here's how to start something up in a child process you intend to write to: open(SPOOLER, "| cat -v | lpr -h 2>/dev/null") || die "can't fork: $!"; local $SIG{PIPE} = sub { die "spooler pipe broke" }; print SPOOLER "stuff\n"; close SPOOLER || die "bad spool: $! $?"; And here's how to start up a child process you intend to read from: open(STATUS, "netstat -an 2>&1 |") || die "can't fork: $!"; while () { next if /^(tcp|udp)/; print; } close STATUS || die "bad netstat: $! $?"; #### use IPC::Open3; $pid = open3(\*WTRFH, \*RDRFH, \*ERRFH, 'some cmd and args', 'optarg', ...);