My need: I want to run an executable and kill it when I'm done with it. (OS is linux)

My problem: I realized open3 returns the pid only at closure.

My Question: How to run a system process and capture its pid while it's still running?

I've written this mangled piece of code as a patch for now, but I'm sure there are much better answers out there.

Your thoughts?

sub pidKill {
#-----------------------------------------------------------
#  USE:        kills the last process seen in output of
#              ps.
#              (This begs to kill the wrong program.)
#  ARGUMENTS:  $string containing program, arguments, and possibly a s
+udo in front.
#  RETURN:     none
#-----------------------------------------------------------
   my $program = shift;
   my (@output,$line);
   if ($program =~ /^sudo /) { $program=$'; }
   if ($program =~ / /)      { $program=$`; }
   while ($program =~ /\//)  { $program=$'; }
   @output = `ps -eo "%p %c" | grep $program`;
   foreach (@output) { $line = $_; }
   trim($line); # like chomp but can strip leading spaces too.
   $line=~/ /;   $line = $`; #should have just the prog now.
   kill 'KILL' , $line;
}

[download]

In reply to How to catch that pid? by mudMonk

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.