Hi Monks,

I have a setup script(A) which triggers one of my scripts(B) in which I invoke another script(C) using qx//. The invoked script (C) might take hours for completion and the output of the same is captured in a variable to error checking and parsing the results.

$exec_status = `$cmd 2>&1`;

But the problem is that, the setup script(A) actually looks for some messages printed on the console or else it will timeout after waiting for a fixed time. So is there any way I can use in my script (B) which actually does not wait for the script (C)'s completion and print something on the STDOUT periodically like "Waiting for $timout seconds..".

When I use backtick, the script B waits till the script C's completeion which is a very long time. The use of system() works for me which prints to STDOUT, but I cannot parse the output of script C.

So basically I just want to combine the functions of backtic and system() which is not possible as far as I know. If I redirect output to a file how will I monitor that the execution is completed and EOF has reached if I use the below method.

$timeout=1000;
open (FP, "scriptC.pl |") or die 'Error';
while (<FP>) {
    $output .= $_;
    sleep 30;
    $timeout -=30;
    print 'Waiting for execution to finish'. $timeout;
}
[download]

Hope you can pour some insights to this.