I'm looking for a way to terminate a (parallel) process opened with by system('start','','some text file for example.txt'); preferably without relaying on non-core modules.

There is no way to do that using start.

The start command is a cmd.exe built-in, so system has to start a new copy of cmd.exe first, to run the start command. Then the start command determines the path & name of the executable associated with the filename you supplied and runs it. There is no way for Perl to know the process id of the process that the start command runs.

The only way to achieve your goal would be to emulate what the start command does -- look up the ftype assoc'd to the file type; then look up the path/executable name for that ftype; then invoke that executable directly.

When run as asyncStart-kill test.png, this starts my image editor with the test.png as its argument; waits 10 seconds and then kills it:

#! perl -slw
use strict;

my $filename = $ARGV[0];
my( $ext ) = $filename =~ m[(\.[^.]+)$];

my( $assoc ) = `assoc $ext` =~ m[=(.+)$];
my( $ftype ) = `ftype $assoc` =~ m[=(.+)$];
$ftype =~ s[^("[^"]+?"|\S+)\K.+$][]; #"
print $ftype;

my $pid = system 1, $ftype, $filename;
print $pid;
sleep 10;
kill 9, $pid;
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Thank you for your replay.
I tired your code but the process isn't being "killed",
The exact same thing is happening with and without the "kill" line.
not when it's a txt in notepad,
nor a pl file in the terminal,
nor an exe file converted from a pl file.
In the last 2, it didn't even open the process in a new window, but rather in the same terminal (weird).

Your thoughts ?
Thx

See how you get on with this version?

#! perl -slw
use strict;

my $filename = $ARGV[0];
my( $ext ) = $filename =~ m[(\.[^.]+)$];

my( $assoc ) = `assoc $ext` =~ m[=(.+)$];
my( $ftype ) = `ftype $assoc` =~ m[=(.+)$];
$ftype =~ s[%(\w+)%][ $ENV{ $1 } ]ge;
$ftype =~ s[^("[^"]+?"|\S+)\K.+$][]; #"
print $ftype, ':', $filename;

my $pid = system 1, $ftype, $filename;
print $pid;
sleep 10;
kill 9, $pid;
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Note: This isn't intended to be a complete replacement for the start command, just a starting point for you to adapt to your needs.

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Examine what is said, not who speaks -- Silence betokens consent -- Love the truth but pardon error.

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In the absence of evidence, opinion is indistinguishable from prejudice.

The start of some sanity?

#!/bin/perl -w

use strict;
use warnings;

use Proc::Background;
use Net::OpenSSH;



    my @ports = ("443","8080");
    my @threads = '';
    my $index = 0;
    foreach my $port(@ports){

        $threads[$index] = Proc::Background->new("/usr/bin/perl thread
+.pl $port");    
        $index++;
    }


    my $ssh = Net::OpenSSH->new("remote.host.net", user=>"me",passwd=>
+"******");
    $ssh->error and die "Can't ssh to host\n";

    my @output = $ssh->capture("nmap -p T:8080,443 my.host.name");

    print @output;

    foreach my $thread (@threads){
        print "Killing $thread\n";
        $thread->die;
    }
    print "Done ";
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system('start "" "some text file for example.txt"');
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