text_combined: david nicol bkjvldjdbmgmailcom 103007 via rt ed avis wrote read stdout command say open fh echo hello gives straightforward way read stderr go back twoargument open use shell handle 21 platform supports longer cleanliness passing arguments directly perl list ipcopen3 heavyweight case want read stderr set command input piped hope would straightforward add feature like open fh 2 echo hello gives filehandle reading commands standard error leaves standard output alone gives stderrcapturing backtick variant kind thing approach adjusted keep end stderr pipe sub gimmestderr bangles tangles spaghetti local r w pipe rw iffork close w else close r open stderr w exec _ heres tested version ls nonexistent ls access nonexistent file directory ls nonexistent devnull ls access nonexistent file directory perl le exec qwls nonexistent ls access nonexistent file directory perl le pipe rw ifforkclose w print got elseclose r open st derr w exec qwls nonexistent got ls access nonexistent file directory thu 07 aug 2008 031642 0600 perl 47031 feature threeargument open reading stderr stdout