Hi, Ok, I think this is a perl2exe (www.perl2exe.com) bug but I figured I would post it here just in case anyone had already also run across this. I'm now using Open2 to create a child process for my perl program on win32, and I can't use both open2 *and* the -gui option on perl2exe at the same time.
I've paid for the full version of perl2exe, soley for the use of the -gui option really, and now I can't use it. Here is a perfect example of the problem. This first program is just one that open2's the second program (after compiled) and they talk back and forth a bit. If I compile this first program with the -gui option,the program starts and then dies right away without really doing anything that I can tell. It won't even print anything out if you run the exe from a console. But, if you just don't compile it with the -gui option, then it works great.

#!/usr/local/bin/perl -w
print "got here!\n";

use Tk;
use IPC::Open2;
$| = 1;

###open2(\*IN, \*OUT, "$^X f2.pl"); 
open2(\*IN, \*OUT, "f2.exe"); 

my $mw = new MainWindow;
$mw->Label(-text => 'Print file')->pack;
my $font = $mw->Entry(-width => 10);
$font->pack;
my $filename = $mw->Entry(-width => 10);
$filename->pack;
$mw->Button(-text => 'make test1 file',
              -command => sub{print OUT "test1.txt\n";}
              )->pack;
$mw->Button(-text => 'make test2 file', 
              -command => sub{print OUT "test2.txt\n";}
              )->pack;
$mw->Button(-text => 'Exit', 
              -command => \&my_exit
              )->pack;
MainLoop;

sub my_exit {
  print OUT "die\n";
  close IN;
  close OUT;
  exit;
}
[download]

Here is the code for f2.exe which you can compile with our without -gui into f2.exe.

#!/usr/local/bin/perl -w
use IPC::Open2;
$| = 1;

while ($line = <STDIN>) {
   last if ($line =~ /die/i);
   #print "child_got_this:$line";
   chomp $line;
   open TTT, ">$line";
   print TTT "file is $line\n";
   close TTT;
}
exit;
[download]

Again, I think this is a problem with perl2exe, and they are looking into it, but I thought people here might like to know about this or like the challenge as well. Thanks!

Justin Eltoft

"If at all god's gaze upon us falls, its with a mischievous grin, look at him" -- Dave Matthews