Here is a bit of perl that demonstrates the underlying problem with alarm. 
#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use 5.006;
use strict;
use warnings;
use Win32::OLE qw(EVENTS);
use Time::HiRes qw(gettimeofday);

Win32::OLE->Option(_Unique => 1);

sub IENavigate( $ );

$| = 1;     # do not buffer output

my $IE;
my $IETimeout = 60;

my @urls = qw(
    http://www.google.com
    http://www.cnn.com/
    );

# start ie, connect to events, make IE visible, connect alarm handler
$IE = Win32::OLE->new("InternetExplorer.Application")
    || die "Could not start Internet Explorer.Application\n";
Win32::OLE->WithEvents($IE,\&IEEvent,"DWebBrowserEvents2");
$IE->{visible} = 1;

$SIG{ALRM} = \&IEAlarm;

# visit some URLs
foreach (@urls){
    print "Navigate to $_\n";
    my $seconds = IENavigate( $_ );
    print "took $seconds\n";
}

# we're done
print "Done\n";

# kill this IE
$IE->Quit();

exit;

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

sub IENavigate( $ ) {
    my $url = shift;
    my $seconds = 0;

    print "IENavigate $url\n";
    alarm $IETimeout;
    $IE->navigate($url);
    Win32::OLE->MessageLoop();
    print "Finished Blocking\n";
    return;
}

sub IEEvent(){
    my ($Obj,$Event,@Args) = @_;
    print "IEEvent '$Event'\n";
}

sub IEAlarm(){
    my $sig = shift;
    print "IEAlarm $sig\n";
    Win32::OLE->QuitMessageLoop();
}

[download]

In reply to Re: Win32::OLE and timeout by puff
in thread Win32::OLE and timeout by puff

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.