IPC::Open3 is your best general purpose interface to run another program. Here are a couple of examples. The first is an interface to bc, which I toy with. The second is an example running tar. 
#!/usr/bin/perl
use warnings;
use strict;
use IPC::Open3;
use IO::Select;

#interface to "bc" calculator 
my $pid = open3(\*WRITE, \*READ,\*ERROR,"bc");
            #if \*ERROR is false, STDERR is sent to STDOUT  

my $selread = new IO::Select();
my $selerror = new IO::Select();
$selread->add(\*READ);
$selerror->add(\*ERROR);
# may not be best use of IO::Select, but it works :-) 

my($error,$answer)=('','');

while(1){

print "Enter expression for bc, i.e. 2 + 2\n";
chomp(my $query = <STDIN>);

#send query to bc 
print WRITE "$query\n";

#timing delay needed tp let bc output 
select(undef,undef,undef,.01);

#see which filehandles have output 
if($selread->can_read(0)){print "ready->read\n"}
if($selerror->can_read(0)){print "ready->error\n"}

#get any error from bc 
sysread(ERROR,$error,4096) if $selerror->can_read(0);
if($error){print "\e[1;31m ERROR-> $error \e[0m \n"}

#get the answer from bc 
sysread(READ,$answer,4096) if $selread->can_read(0);
if($answer){print "$query = $answer\n"}

($error,$answer)=('','');
}

waitpid($pid, 1);
# It is important to waitpid on your child process,   
# otherwise zombies could be created.  
__END__

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#################################################### ##################################################### 

#!/usr/bin/perl
use warnings;
use strict;
use IPC::Open3;
use IO::Select;


my $pid = open3(\*WRITE, \*READ,\*ERROR,"tar -zcvf mytar.tgz *");

#try this for an error 
#my $pid = open3(\*WRITE, \*READ,\*ERROR,"tar -zcvf mytar.tgz ^*"); 
            #if \*ERROR is false, STDERR is sent to STDOUT  


my $selread = new IO::Select();
my $selerror = new IO::Select();
$selread->add(\*READ);
$selerror->add(\*ERROR);
# may not be best use of IO::Select, but it works :-) 

my($error,$answer)=('','');

#timing delay needed tp let tar output 
select(undef,undef,undef,.01);

#see which filehandles have output 
if($selread->can_read(0)){print "ready->read\n"}
if($selerror->can_read(0)){print "ready->error\n"}

#get any error from tar 
sysread(ERROR,$error,4096) if $selerror->can_read(0);
if($error){print "\e[1;31m ERROR-> $error \e[0m \n"}

#get the output from tar 
sysread(READ,$answer,4096) if $selread->can_read(0);
if($answer){print "$answer\n"}


waitpid($pid, 1);
# It is important to waitpid on your child process,   
# otherwise zombies could be created.  
__END__

[download]
I'm not really a human, but I play one on earth. flash japh

In reply to Re: Capturing return value and STDOUT from system like calls by zentara
in thread Capturing return value and STDOUT from system like calls by tid

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