No. The purpose of the die() is to 'terminate' the read from STDIN. Outside the eval, I don't care if it died. I just check to see if the user input anything for $cmd, and then I process that.
> perldoc for alarm says that the die() in the sig handler must terminate with a newline
Okay. I'll add one. However, that begs the question of "Why does it have to have a newline?" I tested alarm handlers before without newlines and they work. This looks like an artifact to me.