This seems to be someting to do with the interaction between mod_perl and perl 5.6, but is really confusing me.

I have a server running perl 5.00503, apache 1.3.19 and mod_perl 1.25 where the code below works perfectly. Then I have my home/dev box which is running perl 5.6.1-26.72.3 and (now) apache 1.3.19/mod_perl 1.25 (configs basically the same except perl) where the same code will not work correctly under mod_perl.

If I run it as a standard cgi or from the shell it works. Under mod_perl the other program just gets a large (infinite?) amount of nothingness (as in $string = <FH> always returns an undef string)

The question is, why? Is it a bug in my code, mod_perl, perl or what? Is there a workaround or some better code to do the same thing?

The code in question:

package Local::JDS::Test;

use strict;
use Data::Dumper;
use Apache::Constants;
use IPC::Open2;
use Local::JDS::Code;

sub handler {
    my $r = shift;

    my %hash = call_plugin ();

    $r->content_type ('text/plain');

    $r->send_http_header;

    $r->print (Dumper (\%hash));

    return OK;
}

sub cgi_handler {
    my %hash = call_plugin ();

    print "Content-type: text/plain\n\n";

    print Dumper (\%hash);
}

sub call_plugin {
    my $command = 'domain_get_expiry';
    my %hash    = (Domain => 'breadrecipe.com');

    #$SIG{'CHLD'} = 'IGNORE';

    my $pid = open2 (\*READ, \*WRITE, '/usr/local/apache/htdocs/jds/ba
+ckend/plugins/srs_plugin.pl');

    my $tmp = select (WRITE);

    $| = 1;

    select ($tmp);

    my $read  = \*READ;
    my $write = \*WRITE;

    Local::JDS::Code::encode ($write, $command, %hash);

    my ($ok, %out) = Local::JDS::Code::decode ($read);

    print $write "QUIT\n\n";

    close $write;
    close $read;

    return %out;
}

1;
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The test cgi (non mod_perl) code is just

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;
use Local::JDS::Test;

Local::JDS::Test::cgi_handler ();
[download]

Local::JDS::Code just sends and receives text via the specified filehandle.