How can I specify timeout limit for Perl system call?

Question

Sometimes my system call goes into a never ending state. To, avoid that I want to be able to break out of the call after a specified amount of time.

Is there a way to specify a timeout limit to system?

system("command", "arg1", "arg2", "arg3"); 

I want the timeout to be implemented from within Perl code for portability, and not using some OS specific functions like ulimit.

Answer 1

See the alarm function. Example from pod:

eval {     local $SIG{ALRM} = sub { die "alarm\n" }; # NB: \n required     alarm $timeout;     $nread = sysread SOCKET, $buffer, $size;     alarm 0; }; if ($@) {     die unless $@ eq "alarm\n";   # propagate unexpected errors     # timed out } else {     # didn't } 

There are modules on CPAN which wrap these up a bit more nicely, for eg: Time::Out

use Time::Out qw(timeout) ;  timeout $nb_secs => sub {   # your code goes were and will be interrupted if it runs   # for more than $nb_secs seconds. };  if ($@){   # operation timed-out } 

Answer 2

You can use IPC::Run's run method instead of system. and set a timeout.