Execing problems

Hi all, I have a seperate perl script that I need to start running from a php script. The script does a fork into the backgroup and exits. when i do an exec("funky script stuff here"); The page just hangs trying to load again, apparently after I call the exec. I've also tried exec("script stuff &") but it does the same thing. Any ideas anybody ? Jason -- Hofstadter's Law : "It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take Hofstadter's Law into account."