To be honest... I really don't understand your code above. Sorry...
But then... Here is a complete program that might help you. It forks 2 children and collects the children's output in an array.
Be aware that there is no error handling (can't fork etc.) yet. 
use warnings;
use strict;

my $children= 2; # How many to fork
my @out;
my $first_child;

$|=1; # unbuffered output to see the effect

my $pid= open($first_child, '-|');
if ($pid) {
    # parent: Collects all output
    @out= <$first_child>;
}
else {
    # child forks again and produces output
    my(@child, @childpid);
    for (my $i=0; $i<$children; ++$i) {
        $childpid[$i]= open($child[$i], '|-');
        if ($childpid[$i]) {
            # parent
            # does nothing yet
        }
        else {
            # child produces some output
            my $j=10;
            while ($j--) {
                print "I'm child $i and will tell this $j more time(s)
+\n";
                sleep 1;
            }
            exit;
        }
    }
    foreach (@child) {
        # closing all child handles
        close $_;
    }
    exit;
}

print @out;

[download]

In reply to Re: Re: Re: IO::Select - is it right for this? by Skeeve
in thread IO::Select - is it right for this? by mcogan1966

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