[tpm] Perl, JBoss and STDOUT

[arocker at vex.net]

I have an interesting problem. Though it may remind you of the song about
the old lady who swallowed a fly, please do not give way to uncontrollable
laughter when I describe the environment. (Note that the various layers
are implemented by separate parties, for institutional security reasons.)

Down at the bottom, (so far down that I can only dimly see it), JBOSS is
running Java application programs. If they work, they are supposed to emit
job tickets to STDOUT.

These Java programs are invoked by bash scripts that set up the
environment, and do whatever other unspeakable acts are necessary to get
Java to perform.

The bash scripts are invoked by my Perl code, which gathers arguments,
creates filenames, establishes working directories, grabs the job tickets,
parses them, and sends mail based on their contents.

Oracle's in the stew somewhere, but nowhere that my programs care about.

Bizarre as the whole edifice may seem, testers actually managed to get
sensible results out of it for a brief period. Then the developers
deployed a new version of the system, and broke something. (Using the
technical sense of "something".)

Now, the shell scripts will still run from the command line, and produce
what look like the same output, but the Perl programs apparently cannot
see it. They certainly aren't creating the same output.

Does any of this fog, mirrors and hand-waving sound familiar to anyone?