I have a job that runs on the half-hour via cron to update a local database from a remote (ugh) ODBC-based thing. Because I recently had to introduce some pauses ( via sleep(1) to try and compensate for the remote server's latency ( it's swapping out like mad ... and errors out too frequently; my update never gets completed ), the job can now take longer than the window. I could run the updater on the hour instead ( which I may do if I can't find another solution ), but for now, I have something like this:

if (-e "/tmp/.updLock") {
   open(FILE, "/tmp/.updLock");
   my $line = <FILE>;
   close(FILE);
   chomp $line;
                                                                      
+                                                                     
+                
   warn "PROCESS $line already running \n\n";
                                                                      
+                                                                     
+                
   my @ps = `ps -p $line`;
   my $count = @ps;
   if ($count == 1) {
      # IT's FAKING IT!!                                              
+                                                                     
+                                        
      warn "PROCESS $line not actually running.  Lockfile deleted. \n\
+n";
      unlink("/tmp/.updLock");
   }
                                                                      
+                                                                     
+                
   # we're still updating from last time                              
+                                                                     
+                                                        
   die "$0 still running\n\n" if $count > 1;
} else {
   open(FILE, "> /tmp/.upLock");
   print FILE $$;
   close(FILE);
}
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Thing is, my cron output sends me the warn and die messages, but the script is *still* running.

I do have an END block, but all is does is: $dbh->disconnect() if defined( $dbh );