See open. Opening a pipe to a program returns that programs PID. 
$pid = open $pipe, "/some/program |";
while (<$pipe>) {
    ... # /some/program's output in $_
}
close $pipe;         # program gets a sigpipe
if (kill 0, $pid) {  # still there?
   kill 15, $pid;
}

[download]

--shmem 

_($_=" "x(1<<5)."?\n".q·/)Oo.  G°\        /
                              /\_¯/(q    /
----------------------------  \__(m.====·.(_("always off the crowd"))."·
");sub _{s./.($e="'Itrs `mnsgdq Gdbj O`qkdq")=~y/"-y/#-z/;$e.e && print}

In reply to Re: start and kill a process in a local shell by shmem
in thread start and kill a process in a local shell by danmcb

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