my $connected = 0;
$SIG{PIPE} = sub { warn "Lost connection to server: $!"; $connected = 0; };
use IO::Socket::INET;
use Carp;

sub new_connection
{
    return IO::Socket::INET->new(
                                     PeerAddr=> $host,
                                     PeerPort=> $port,
                                     Proto=> "tcp",
                                     Blocking => 1 ) ;
}

my $socket = new_connection()
   or die "$!";
my $output;

for(1..100){
    print $_ . "..";
    sleep(2);

    if ($connected)
    {
       $output = $socket->syswrite($string);
    }
    else
    {
       $socket = new_connection ();
                     or die "$!"
       $connected = 1;
    } 
 
    print "done\n";
}