Let Timer accept all allowable perl numbers

Incidentally, it is now possible to have a timer that never times out using 'inf'

Makefile.PL

@@ -27,8 +27,7 @@ TOHERE
 		## Die nicely in case some install manager cares about the canonical
 		## error message for this.  Not that I've ever seen one, but those
 		## wacky CPANPLUSers might just do something cool in this case.
-
-      		## Older perls' Socket.pm don't export IPPROTO_TCP
+		## Older perls' Socket.pm don't export IPPROTO_TCP
 		require 5.006;
 		## Most of the time it's not needed (since IPC::Run tries not to
 		## use sockets), but the user is not likely to know what the hell
@@ -39,6 +38,11 @@ TOHERE
 	}
 }
 
+if ( $^V < version->parse('v5.8.1') ) {
+    # need Scalar::Util::looks_like_number
+	$PREREQ_PM{'Scalar::List::Utils'} = '1.10';
+}
+
 WriteMakefile(
 	NAME         => 'IPC::Run',
 	ABSTRACT     => 'system() and background procs w/ piping, redirs, ptys (Unix, Win32)',	

lib/IPC/Run/Timer.pm

@@ -71,9 +71,9 @@ it's in.
 
 =head2 Time values
 
-All time values are in seconds.  Times may be specified as integer or
-floating point seconds, optionally preceded by puncuation-separated
-days, hours, and minutes.\
+All time values are in seconds.  Times may be any kind of perl number,
+e.g. as integer or floating point seconds, optionally preceded by
+punctuation-separated days, hours, and minutes.
 
 Examples:
 
@@ -84,6 +84,7 @@ Examples:
    1:1         1 minute, 1 second
    1:90        2 minutes, 30 seconds
    1:2:3:4.5   1 day, 2 hours, 3 minutes, 4.5 seconds
+   'inf'       the infinity perl special number (the timer never finishes)
 
 Absolute date/time strings are *not* accepted: year, month and
 day-of-month parsing is not available (patches welcome :-).
@@ -161,6 +162,7 @@ use Carp;
 use Fcntl;
 use Symbol;
 use Exporter;
+use Scalar::Util;
 use vars qw( $VERSION @ISA @EXPORT_OK %EXPORT_TAGS );
 BEGIN {
 	$VERSION   = '0.90';
@@ -202,9 +204,11 @@ sub _parse_time {
          if (scalar @f > 4) {
             croak "IPC::Run: expected <= 4 elements in time string '$_'";
          }
-         map {
-            $_ =~ /\d+/ ? $_ : croak "IPC::Run: non-numeric element '$_' in time string '$_'";
-         } @f;
+         for (@f) {
+            if (not Scalar::Util::looks_like_number($_)) {
+               croak "IPC::Run: non-numeric element '$_' in time string '$_'";
+            }
+         }
          my ( $s, $m, $h, $d ) = reverse @f;
          $val = ( (
              ( $d || 0 )   * 24

t/timer.t

@@ -19,7 +19,7 @@ BEGIN {
 	}
 }
 
-use Test::More tests => 76;
+use Test::More tests => 77;
 use IPC::Run qw( run );
 use IPC::Run::Timer qw( :all );
 
@@ -41,6 +41,8 @@ $t->interval( 30          );  ok( $t->interval >=   30 );
 $t->interval( 30.1        );  ok( $t->interval >    30 );
 $t->interval( 30.1        );  ok( $t->interval <=   31 );
 
+$t->interval( 'inf'       );  ok( $t->interval >  1000 );
+
 $t->interval( "1:0"       );  is( $t->interval,     60 );
 $t->interval( "1:0:0"     );  is( $t->interval,   3600 );
 $t->interval( "1:1:1"     );  is( $t->interval,   3661 );