If the output is potentially large...

If the output from (or the input to) the command is large, there is an experimental, undocumented open2 method (which btrott informed me of while I was writing a file transfer script). It returns tied filehandles, so they won't work as arguments for some things which require real filehandles (like old versions of File::Copy or Net::FTP).

# I may have in and out reversed here, try both ways
my ($out, $in)=$ssh->open2("command and args");
close $in;
while (<$out>) {
 # Process output
}
close $out;
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