I have a script that generates several fairly complicated SVGs, places them in a folder, and then runs an external Java program to convert the folder of SVGs into a single PDF. Currently I'm calling the Java program from within my script as follows: 

$report_failure = system('java -jar /var/www/helper_code/svg2pdf.jar '
+ . "$output_files$invoice_data_ref->{'actual_invoice_id'}" . '/master
+*.svg' . ' ' . "$output_files$invoice_data_ref->{'actual_invoice_id'}
+" . '/master.pdf');

[download]
This works, but it is slower than I expect it to be. For example, if I generate the folder of SVGs, and then manually run the Java program from the shell it takes 5-6 seconds to create the PDF. However, executing the Java command from within my perl script takes 13 seconds. At first I thought this was just due to the overhead of calling any external command from within perl, but if I replace my call to system with a simpler call (e.g., system('java -version') ) then that call takes less than a second.

Any ideas on how to figure this out?

In reply to Speeding up external command execution by Anonymous Monk

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