I'm just curious - ignore this if it requires TMI.
As I understand the situation, you've got a script S that does some stuff and before exiting sets some environment variables. Those environment variables are persistent. You want to write a Perl script that calls S and be able to read those environment variables in the Perl script (or afterwards). But you can't do so with the Perl script because of subprocess limitations. Correct?
But you say,
Workaround is to run the script before the perl script, but in this situation that's a messy hack.
How so? It seems to me that it's the best solution if you can't change script S. It sounds like the [link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=25831|transparent aluminum mirror] problem again... ;-)
Cheers,
Scott.