use IO::Socket qw( ); my $sel = new IO::Select(); my %clients; for my $sock ($sock1, $sock2) { $clients{$sock} = { buf => '', # ... }; $sel->add( $sock ); } while ( my @ready = $sel->can_read() ) { foreach my $sock (@ready) { my $client = $clients{$sock}; our $buf; local *buf = \( $client->{buf} ); sysread( $sock, $buf, 32*1024, length($buf) ) or do { $sel->remove( $sock ); delete $clients{$sock}; next; }; while ( my ($msg) = $buf =~ s/^(...)// ) { process($msg); } } }