Very interesting code. Thank you. Suppose I wanted to have the loop pass data to the child. 

my @array = (1 .. 20);

foreach my $x (@array){
    spawn($x);
}

...

sub spawn{
# the unless and : ? statements were too alien to me.
        my $x = shift;

        if ( ! $spawn_enabled ) {
                if ($children <= $min_child ){
                        $spawn_enabled=1;
                } elsif ( ! $spawn_enabled ) {
                        return;
                }
        }
        if ( fork() ){
                $children++;
                if ( $children > $max_child ){
                        $spawn_enabled = 0;
                }
                #printf "%d children running\n",$children;
        } else {
                my_child_work($x);
        }
}

sub my_child_work{
    my $x = shift;
    print "child x $x\n";
    sleep 1;
    exit;
}

[download]

This results is numbers being missed. In fact, I only see the numbers 1, 2 and 3 being printed when using a max of 2 children. I think this is due to my original logic flaw. I do not have the problem when using Parallel ForkManager but, I'd like to understand how to do without.

In reply to Re^2: Help with Fork bomb by Anonymous Monk
in thread Help with Fork bomb by Anonymous Monk

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