There are a few ways to implement this. The classic solution is to fork, set an alarm, and then kill the child thread if it hasn't responded yet; but then you need to get into interprocess communication.

Probably the most straightforward approach is documented here: Perl 5.8.8 threads, clean exit You would run your backticks in the child thread, and sleep then reap in the parent.

#11929 First ask yourself `How would I do this without a computer?' Then have the computer do it the same way.

In reply to Re^5: PGP encryption command not working thru Perl Backticks by kennethk
in thread PGP encryption command not working thru Perl Backticks by newperlmonkey

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