Perl max execution time on webserver

Question

How can I set the execution time of a perl skript on a webserver. Is this analog to php in the php.ini "max_execution_time" or is there another way?

Answer 1

If you're using a CGI (not mod_perl or FastCGI), it may be worthwhile just adding the following towards the top of the code:

alarm 30; # SIGALRM delivered to this process after 30 secs

If the program has no handler for SIGALRM, it will die.

Example:

use strict;
use warnings;
alarm 2;
my $n = 0;
while ( 1 ) {
  print "$n\n";
  sleep 1;
  $n++;
}
__END__
$ perl alr
0
1
Alarm clock

You can choose what should happen when the timeout occurs, like this:

$SIG{ALRM} = sub {
  # do stuff
};

You would place that code before you use the alarm().

An example there could be sending an e-mail to advise you the script took longer than expected, or whatever.

Alarms can also be used as watchdogs for specific sections of the code, like:

alarm 5;    # shouldn't take longer than 5 seconds. if not, die.
do_stuff();
alarm 0;    # reset the alarm

Hope this helps.