#!/usr/bin/perl use warnings; use IPC::Open3; use IO::Select; use POSIX ":sys_wait_h"; use Symbol; sub run { my ($WRITE, $READ, $ERROR); $ERROR=gensym(); my $command="not_a_command"; my $error=""; my $output=""; eval { $pid=open3($WRITE, $READ, $ERROR, "$command"); }; if (!$pid) { # if we get here, the fork succeeded, but the exec (likely) failed... my $err = $@ ? $@ : "unknown error"; # exit child in any case die "Error: Could not execute $command: $err"; } else { close($WRITE); my $selector=IO::Select->new(); $selector->add($READ, $ERROR); while(@ready=$selector->can_read) { foreach (@ready) { if(fileno($_)==fileno($READ)) { $bytes=sysread($READ, $text, 1024); if($bytes==0) { $selector->remove($_); } else { $output.=$text; } } elsif(fileno($_)==fileno($ERROR)) { $bytes=sysread($ERROR, $text, 1024); if($bytes==0) { $selector->remove($_); } else { $error.=$text; } } } } waitpid($pid, 0); } return($output, $error); } my ($output, $error); ($output, $error)=run(); print "$output, $error\n";