system("swap.pl &") will put swap.pl into the background (a feature of the shell).

By the way, wouldn't it be easier to give the data as parameter to swap.pl, i.e. system("swap.pl \"$_\" &") ? This would only work for non-binary data naturally and you would have to escape " \ and $ in the string

In reply to Re: exec vs. system by jethro
in thread exec vs. system by Microcebus

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