sorry, i did read the manual before i asked my question but i dont seem to understand, i do try but im not that smart. i used your code in conjunction with what im doing... 
my $pid = fork;
if ($pid) {
    # give thank u message.
} elsif (defined $pid) {
    # close STDIN
    # close STDOUT
    # send emails.
    # exit.
} else {
    # Error message.
}

[download]
but im not convinced a fork was created, because the browser seems to still be loading from the perl script the whole time while the emails are being sent and then it times out after about 5 minutes, i have closed both STDIN and STDOUT yet the perl script still seems to be communicating with the browser?

In reply to Re: Re: creating a fork process by fullyloaded
in thread creating a fork process by richp

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.