as you are using qx() (which gets the full output anyway) maybe you can simply redirect the output of your external command to a file (using the system shell and process that later 

my $cmd = "$ext_cmd > $my_output"; # using unixlike shell
system($cmd) == 0 or die;          #

[download]

(ignore if your OS is not unixlike) what does happen if you manually send SIGALRM to that external process? (wrap it in a shell if the execution time is too short).

cheers --stephan

In reply to Re^4: Backticks and SIGALRM by sgt
in thread Backticks and SIGALRM by nemo

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