I'd be glad to do what you suggested - I just don't know how. Maybe I'm misunderstanding something about web servers, but I'm really really not sure how to run something from a CGI program after it has finished.

Perhaps you could provide a couple of lines of sample code? (Only if it's not too much to ask for, of course.)

Something like this should work:


@args = ("command", "arg1", "arg2");
system(@args) == 0 or die "system @args failed: $?";
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Update: Or maybe this is better since exec() doesn't return to the current script:


@args = ("command", "arg1", "arg2");
exec { $args[0] } @args or print STDERR "couldn't exec $args[0]: $!";
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I do appreciate that you were trying to help... Unfortunately, the above would not work. Just for the notes - quote from the Camel Book (3rd edition, p. 811) - "The system function works exactly like exec, except that system does a fork first and then, after the exec, waits for the executed program to complete." That's exactly what prevents me from envoking an external program using exec or system - I need my CGI program to completely finish and exit BEFORE the child process finishes.

There's a similar post "Understanding fork" by neiwatson. I'll try some of the suggestions offered there, even though I'm not sure to what extent they are applicable to Windows systems. I was just wondering if anyone had experience forking on Windows systems from a CGI program (it's important for it to be a CGI program, i.e. run on a web server)