You can run external programs with your choice of system, fork, open, backticks, or exec. For what I think you want, a combination of fork and exec sounds right.

{
    my @prog = ('/path/to/program', @opts, @args);
    my $pid = fork();
    defined $pid or warn "Could not launch @prog" and last;
    last if $pid; # Parent
    # adjust child environment here, if desired
    exec @prog;
}
[download]

fork sets up a child process which then exec's the external program. Similar code can be wrapped up in a sub which acts as your Tk button handler.

Update: You should also make arrangements to prevent the child from going zombie. That can be done by setting up a $SIG{CHLD} handler, or with wait/waitpid. In an event-driven environment, and with the run of the child indeterminate, the SIGCHLD handler 'IGNORE' is probably best if that is usable on your platform.

---

---

Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!

Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.

Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.

Please read these before you post! —

• How do I compose an effective node title?
• How do I post a question effectively?
• Markup in the Monastery

Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:

a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr

You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)

	For:		Use:
	&		&
	<		&lt;
	>		&gt;
	[		&#91;
	]		&#93;

Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?

See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.