A proof of concept for sending code as strings for evaluation in a child process.

parcel-passer.pl

#!/usr/bin/env perl

# ABSTRACT: proof of concept for sending subs to a child process for evaluation

use strict;
use warnings;
use v5.10;
use Data::Dumper;
use Socket;
use Time::HiRes qw(sleep);

$|=1;

my %funcs = map {
    s/\A\s+|\s+\z//g;
    my ($name) = /^\s*sub\s+([[:alnum:]]+)/
        or die "Failed to find name in $_";
    $name => $_;
}
    grep /\S/,
    split /^\s*$/m,
    do { local $/; <DATA> };

say Dumper(\%funcs);

pipe READER, WRITER
    or die "pipe: $!";

WRITER->autoflush;

if (my $pid = fork) {
    my $count = 0;
    for my $fn (sort keys %funcs) {
        say "$$ parent send $fn";
        (my $source = $funcs{$fn}) =~ s/\n/ /g;
        print WRITER $source, "\n";
        printf WRITER "%s(%s)\n", $fn, ++$count;
    }
    sleep 1;
} else {
    while (<READER>) {
        chomp;
        say "$$ child read $_";
        eval $_;
    }
}

say "done";

__DATA__
sub func1 {
    sleep 0.1; say "Hello from func1 (@_)";
}

sub func2 {
    sleep 0.1; say "Hello from func2 (@_)";
}