Plankton@linux:~/perl/perlmonks> cat opentar.pl 
#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;

open TAR, "tar @ARGV|" or die "tar @ARGV" failed:$!\n";
my @stdout = <TAR>;
print @stdout;
close (TAR);

Plankton@linux:~/perl/perlmonks> ./opentar.pl -cvf ../junk.tar .
./opentar.pl
./okaynow.pl
./SimpleType.pm
./coredump.pl