It doesn't help if you want to capture STDERR and STDOUT in separate scalars.

To answer gmarler's question: if you just want to capture STDERR and STDOUT for an external program then it is rather easy to do with IPC::Run:

use IPC::Run qw(run);

my($out, $err);
run ['/path/to/prog', 'arg1', 'arg2'], '>', \$out, '2>', \$err;
[download]

You can find more complex examples in following nodes:

• Re: Timing External Program Execution
• Re: system, pipes, shell, quoting
• Re: SIGINT in system() with shell metachars

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Ilya Martynov, ilya@iponweb.net
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Thanks for that - note however that in addition to capturing STDOUT/STDERR, I still need to have the STDIN/STDOUT/STDERR of the external program connected to the terminal where the person is running the script, in case the external program requires input from the user, and so that any output is immediately visible to the user, in addition to being saved in the scalar(s).

I'll try your recommendation out though - maybe it does give me what I want.

For STDIN/-ERR, just print the output to the appropriate handles yourself. For STDIN, if you have taken control of the subprocesses STDIN yourself, just copy the user input in there yourself. You can do that "realtime" rather than post mortem by passing closures rather scalar refs, if memory serves.

Makeshifts last the longest.

I would now like to additionally capture the STDOUT and STDERR of the external program in separate scalars within the Perl script.

Makeshifts last the longest.