If you are using a Un*x platform, you may want to look at Proc::ProcessTable. This is from the perldoc....

# A cheap and sleazy version of ps
        use Proc::ProcessTable;

        $FORMAT = "%-6s %-10s %-8s %-24s %s\n";
        $t = new Proc::ProcessTable;
        printf($FORMAT, "PID", "TTY", "STAT", "START", "COMMAND");
        foreach $p ( @{$t->table} ){
          printf($FORMAT,
                 $p->pid,
                 $p->ttydev,
                 $p->state,
                 scalar(localtime($p->start)),
                 $p->cmndline);
        }
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