Ok, let me try to rephrase.

What is the best way to affect program behavior, using keyboard keys/commands/shortcuts/signals, without waiting for user input?

I would like to send keyboard interrupts to a running Perl process to cause it to perform certain functions midstream. For instance, I would like to press ^C and have it dump some information to the screen, I would like to press ^Z and have it dump some information to a file, etc.

To my thinking, it would be easiest to use signals to illicit this behavior from my program especially because it runs in the foreground of a terminal; I am not sure how to send these signals to the program using keyboard controls.
I could use the Linux command 'kill' (and the respective signal number) to send the signals to the process, or I could write a second program and use the Perl built-in 'kill' to send these signals, but this requires a second terminal (which may or may not be feasible) and requires knowing the PID of the Perl process (which is leas than ideal). Both of these solutions are less than ideal.

my problem is I can only send the interrupt signal via keyboard keys.
I assure you this is not what I meant... What I was trying to say is: I would like to send the signals via keyboard keys (or combination of keys), my problem is I don't know how. {What you didn't get that?!? I can imagine why... Can't you read minds?}

Perhaps signals aren't the best choice; I am open to other suggestions, but have no idea where to start other than completely rewriting my program using the POE framework...

Thanks for your understanding; I work for a help desk, so I totally understand how painful it can be when someone requests help and provides partial (or less than partial) information.