Sure thing. First, though, I may recommend Super Search. It does a good job in finding common questions such as this very one.

Here is a search result I pulled with a pretty fair amount of nodes with very similar questions.

Otherwise, take a look into the exec() and system() perl functions. They will enable Perl to call an external application while not relying on the open() function to pipe into the file you are attempting to run.

Also, you will need to make sure the called script has execute priveldges.

Hope that helps