Try this (from a couple of posts down from the link I provided at:633867):

#! perl -slw
use strict;

sub timedCommand {
    use threads;
    use threads::shared;
    my( $cmd, $timeout ) = @_;

    my @results :shared;
    my $pid :shared;

    async {
        $pid = open my $fh, "$cmd |" or die "$!, $^E";
        @results = <$fh>;
    }->detach;

    kill 0, $pid while sleep 1 and $timeout--;
    kill 3, $pid and return if $timeout;
    return @results;
}

...
 ## Run foo.exe, kill it after 20 seconds.
my @results = timedCommand( 'foo.exe -opt', 20 );
...
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