The Java program is a daemon process that I need to launch, runs continuously in the background listening to a JMS queue and writhing out XML messages. The Perl program scans the directory for XML files (messages from the JMS client written out) and reads them in. When the Perl program is launched, it needs to check if the JMS daemon is running and if not start it.
I am going to implement a small sleep after the system call, then recheck if the process is running. If not exit with an error.
Thanks Everyone for the helpful replies.