In this case, if you would do an exec() instead of a meaningless ` ` construct (you're not doing anything with the captured output, in fact, you're redirecting all possible output to a file), you would know the pid, because it would be the value returned by fork().

Also, the open("|") type constructs return the child PID.

update: and loose the & at the end of the syscall, you've already forked off a seperate process.

update2: oh, I forgot. If you do pipes and redirect like you do, you're in fact starting a shell, which starts several other processes. So in fact, the only program started by perl would be the shell.

"What should it profit a man, if he should win a flame war, yet lose his cool?"

In reply to Re: How do you find the process ID to any UNIX programs that your Perl program executes? by Joost
in thread How do you find the process ID to any UNIX programs that your Perl program executes? by rzs96

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