There is a module that already provides this functionality: Parallel::ForkManager 
use Parallel::ForkManager;

$pm = new Parallel::ForkManager($MAX_PROCESSES);

foreach $data (@all_data) {
  # Forks and returns the pid for the child:
  my $pid = $pm->start and next;

  ... do some work with $data in the child process ...

  $pm->finish; # Terminates the child process
}

[download]
The code above is an excerpt from the man page of P::FM.

Hope this helps, 

   larryk                                          
perl -le "s,,reverse killer,e,y,rifle,lycra,,print"

In reply to Re: Limiting the number of forks by larryk
in thread Limiting the number of forks by c

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