I figured it out. $passw_file was getting garbled and no longer was a valid file. But my question still remains, how does one figure out what is going on when it fails like this? The open directive seems to be hit or miss, is there no way to find out what is going on other than to probe for each possible case individualy? Jay -----Original Message----- From: tclug-list-admin at mn-linux.org [mailto:tclug-list-admin at mn-linux.org]On Behalf Of Jay Kline Sent: Tuesday, July 31, 2001 3:06 PM To: tclug-list at mn-linux.org Subject: [TCLUG] Perl and file writing I am writing a perl script that acts like the passwd program, but is intended for my virtual pop user database. Anyway, I cant seem to find out why I cant write to a file. I will include the snipit, but I would also like to know how to debug these problems. They have poped up before, and it seems very binary, it either works or it dosnt. Is there some way to find out WHY it dosnt work? Here is the snipit: open PASSWD, '>' . $passw_file or die "There was an error opening the password file.\n"; print PASSWD "$pw_data"; close PASSWD; print "Password file updated.\n"; PS- this script is being run by root at the moment, and I double checked that the file is not in use, and that the owner can write to it. Jay _______________________________________________ tclug-list mailing list tclug-list at mn-linux.org https://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list