Package Proc::Background Version 1.08

This is the Proc::Background package.  It provides a generic interface
to running background processes.  Through this interface, users can
run background processes on different operating systems without
concerning themselves about the specifics of doing this.  Users of
this package create new Proc::Background objects that provide an
object oriented interface to process management.  The following
methods are provided to users of the Proc::Background package:

    new:        start a new background process.
    alive:      test to see if the process is still alive.
    die:        reliably try to kill the process.
    wait:       wait for the process to exit and return the exit status.
    start_time: return the time that the process started.
    end_time:   return the time when the exit status was retrieved.

A generic function, timed-system, is also included that lets a
background process run for a specified amount of time, and if the
process did not exit, then the process is killed.

AVAILABILITY

The latest released version of this package is available from a CPAN
archive near you in

    http://www.perl.com/CPAN/authors/id/B/BZ/BZAJAC/

The latest beta version of this package is hosted in a Subversion
repository located at

    http://svn.orcaware.com:8000/repos/trunk/proc_background/

Subversion is an open-source source code management system designed to
replace CVS.  To get Subversion, see

    http://subversion.tigris.org/

and for an overview of Subversion, see

    http://www.orcaware.com/svn/Subversion-Blair_Zajac.ppt

INSTALLATION

In order to use this package you will need Perl version 5.004_04 or
better.

On Win32 systems Proc::Background requires the Win32::Process module.
To check if your Perl has Win32::Process installed on it, run

    perl Makefile.PL

If this command does not complain about missing Win32::Process, then
you have the module installed.  If you receive an error message, you
can do two things to resolve this.  If you have not performed
extensive customization and installation of modules into your Perl,
the easier path is to upgrade to the latest version of ActiveState
Perl at

    http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Downloads/ActivePerl/

which includes Win32::Process.  If you want to use your current Perl
installation, then download the latest version of the libwin32 package
by Gurusamy Sarathy available at:

    http://www.perl.com/CPAN/authors/id/GSAR/

Once that is completed, you install Proc::Background as you would
install any perl module library, by running these commands:

    perl Makefile.PL
    make
    make test
    make install

You can edit the configuration section of Makefile.PL to select which
programs to install in addition to the library itself.  If you don't
want to install any programs (only the library files) and don't want
to mess with the Makefile.PL then pass the '-n' option to Makefile.PL:

    perl Makefile.PL -n

If you want to install a private copy of this package in some other
directory, then you should try to produce the initial Makefile with
something like this command:

    perl Makefile.PL LIB=~/perl

DOCUMENTATION

See the CHANGES file for a list of recent changes.  POD style
documentation is included in all modules and scripts.  These are
normally converted to manual pages end installed as part of the "make
install" process.  You should also be able to use the 'perldoc'
utility to extract documentation from the module files directly.

COPYRIGHT

Copyright (C) 1998-2002 Blair Zajac.  All rights reserved.  This
package is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
under the same terms as Perl itself.