mod_perl hates it when someone tries to close STDIN, which is what Expect is doing.

You could just fool Expect... (untested w/mod_perl)

#!/usr/bin/perl
BEGIN {
    use IO::Handle;
    *Expect::STDIN = IO::Handle->new;
    require Expect;
}
# Expect closes STDIN in sub spawn
my $exp = Expect->spawn('/bin/sh') or die "fubar: $!\n";

my $line = <STDIN>;
print "got via STDIN: $line";
[download]

This works fine standalone. Don't know whether that passes mod_perl's scrutinity, though. For multiple spawns a local *I_FOOL_EXPECT seems more suitable than an IO::Handle object (multiple closes).

--shmem

_($_=" "x(1<<5)."?\n".q·/)Oo.  G°\        /
                              /\_¯/(q    /
----------------------------  \__(m.====·.(_("always off the crowd"))."·
");sub _{s./.($e="'Itrs `mnsgdq Gdbj O`qkdq")=~y/"-y/#-z/;$e.e && print}