#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;

my ( $form, $clone_from, $clone_to ) = @ARGV;

#  Trying to use this to capture output
open( STDOUT, "|-" ) or die ("Can't open standard output: $!\n");

open( my $writeme, "| program -text -brief clone_error")
      or die ("Can't run write program: $!\n");

print $writeme <<EOF;
$form
r
clone_from=$clone_from
r
EOF

#  Program works fine for write, and at this point a bunch of text is printed from the program
#  to the screen.  But I want to capture the output to a variable.

#  This was my try but it doesn't work
my $output;
while ( <STDOUT> ) {

     $output .= $_;

}

print "stored " . $output . " stored";