depending on your system, you can use Win32::Process and arbitrarily kill things after a given period of time. Whether or not this eats memory is up for debate.
If you're on the other type of system, some magic with ps should get you started.

In reply to Re: Perl Timers and command-line processes (boo) by boo_radley
in thread Perl Timers and command-line processes by E-Bitch

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