Ah, is it an absolute rule not to use open with sysread/syswrite ?
The reason I ask is that i've had no obvious problems before using something like :

open(HANDLE,"+>$name") or die $!;
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Then say a four way select() & sysread() until sysread returns 0. Same can be said for syswrite() but without the select() and zero byte check.

I'm aware that print and read are buffered, but i'm aware of little more than that ;-)

To conclude, i reckon i will implement what was first decided on Sunday, and that is using sysread() to fill up the target scalar, it has been interesting however to have seen the other options, TMTOWTDI indeed.

regards,

Isaac.