Perhaps a piped open would be better than a system() command?

If necessary, you can probably print out a "^C" to the handle to kill it. This is an example where you should definitely check the return value from close().

open my $handle, "| @commands" or die "Can't fork. $!";
#print $handle , "\x3"; #  if necessary
close $handle or warn "Couldn't close $handle. $!";
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