...but the webpage just hangs waiting for the process to finish

You need to fork and exec for an asynchronous response of the server:

Here is some documentation that can help you:

Re: spawning Perl scripts by Abigail
Web Techniques Column 20 by merlyn

hope this helps

citromatik

In reply to Re: Creating a background task from the web by citromatik
in thread Creating a background task from the web by andy_7t

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