Check out fork and exec. Something like: 
my $child = fork;
if ($child) {
  # I am in the parent...wait then kill
  for my $i in (1..10) {
    sleep 1;
    print ".";
  }
  kill -9, $child;
}
else {
  # Run the background program
  exec '/path/to/program/that/would/output/something/and/run/forever >
+ /dev/null 2>&1';
}

[download]
There is more to error checking for return values than I illustrate here. Do see the documentation for examples.
Caution: Contents may have been coded under pressure.

In reply to Re: Executing a program, displaying some status, and killing it by Roy Johnson
in thread Executing a program, displaying some status, and killing it by Spida

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.