Here's a way to reap your children, reaping as soon as they're gone, and without reaping any other child processes. It uses the fact sleep gets interrupted on a signal: 
#!/usr/bin/perl

use 5.010;

use strict;
use warnings;
use autodie;
use POSIX ':sys_wait_h';

$SIG{CHLD} = sub {1;};

my $start = time;

my %children;
foreach (1 .. 10) {
    if (my $pid = fork) {
        $children{$pid} = 1; 
    }
    else {
        my $diff = time - $start;
        say "$diff: Child $$";
        sleep rand 10;
        $diff = time - $start;
        say "$diff: Child $$ out of here";
        exit;
    }
}

while (1) {
    foreach my $pid (keys %children) {
        if (my $r = waitpid($pid, WNOHANG)) { 
            delete $children{$pid}; 
            my $diff = time - $start;
            say $r == $pid ? "$diff: Reaped $pid" : "$diff: $pid gone!
+";
        }
    }
    last unless %children;
    my $diff = time - $start;
    say "$diff: Sleeping";
    sleep 1;
}

my $diff = time - $start;
say "$diff: End";
__END__
0: Child 3975
0: Child 3976
0: Child 3976 out of here
0: Child 3977
0: Child 3978
0: Child 3979
0: Child 3980
0: Child 3981
0: Child 3982
0: Child 3983
0: Child 3984
0: Reaped 3976
0: Sleeping
1: Child 3977 out of here
1: Reaped 3977
1: Sleeping
2: Child 3979 out of here
2: Child 3980 out of here
2: Reaped 3979
2: Sleeping
2: Reaped 3980
2: Sleeping
3: Child 3982 out of here
3: Reaped 3982
3: Sleeping
4: Child 3978 out of here
4: Reaped 3978
4: Sleeping
4: Child 3981 out of here
4: Reaped 3981
4: Sleeping
4: Child 3984 out of here
4: Reaped 3984
4: Sleeping
5: Child 3983 out of here
5: Reaped 3983
5: Sleeping
8: Child 3975 out of here
8: Reaped 3975
8: End

[download]

In reply to Re: subroutines which forks? by JavaFan
in thread subroutines which forks? by Anonymous Monk

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