Have a look at Corion's Future::HTTP, it supports multiple backends that allow for asynchronous HTTP requests. Just note that the default backend, if none of the event loops could be found, is HTTP::Tiny, which is synchronous, so make sure to load (and start) one of the supported event loops.

Update: Now that Corion has released Future::HTTP 0.14, you can use the is_async method to confirm that the requests will indeed be asynchronous, e.g. my $ua = Future::HTTP->new(); die "UA is not asynchronous" unless $ua->is_async;

There are several ways. As you've said nothing about your environment it's difficult to give specific advice. But you might consider

• threads
• fork
• A non-blocking event loop solution like AnyEvent::HTTP (other event loops are available)

That's the devil of it. The LWP request is in a fork, like this:

  fork
  If parent
    Do A
  If child
    Do B
[download]

B has the LWP request in it. Branch A sends PRINT commands to a browser. The page being presented is held up until the LWP request in Branch B is finished.

Maybe the fork command needs to be modified somehow so that both branches are truly independent.

Thanks,

jb

You need to dissociate the child from the parent, by closing STDOUT and STDERR in the child. See also Watching long processes through CGI.

Please explain what you mean by "keep moving REGARDLESS of what happens at the server".
In general if you make a request like you want (an asynchronous request), you need to have code to check back upon what happened to that request while your code was doing something else. That can get complicated.

There are multiple ways to create multiple instances of your program. Each instance sends a GET and waits. But there are multiple instances of this program running at once. So the server can have multiple requests that it is processing at the same time.

Please explain further what you are intending to do?
Sometimes there are API's that can do what you want.
Sometimes there are "use policies" that restrict how many "get's" are outstanding at a given time for a particular website.

Your general question is so vague that I have no solutions.

Thank you to all who responded.

Manipulating STDOUT and STDERR with CLOSE/OPEN didn't work.

I'm trying to do this on a commercial web hosting service so I don't have access to the more non-mainstream solutions mentioned.

Fortunately, the target process of the LWP isn't intolerably long, so the situation is acceptable.

jb

I think you also have to close STDIN, perhaps depending on which web server is being used.

I'm trying to do this on a commercial web hosting service so I don't have access to the more non-mainstream solutions mentioned.

Please see Yes, even you can use CPAN - if you have shell access to the machine, it's very likely you can install modules there, using something like local::lib, and sometimes it's possible even if you don't have shell access. Personally I'd prefer to help you with that rather than some other hacked solution :-)

There is perlbrew. Also a VM on digital ocean is $5/mo, which provides a nice companion to any share hosting account environment. Those are not suitable for the kind of shell home you want. Also check out SDF/freeshell.

Probably helpful or inspiring.