in reply to write to local files? and why does strict bugger this online but not locally?
Firstly, yes it is possible to write to a local file. I tried your program and it worked creating menu.txt.
If the file didn't get created then it is probably being created somewhere else. Put a
Into your program to see where it thinks the current directory is, then look there for menu.txtuse Cwd; print cwd();
Secondly - check the version of perl between your local machine and the remote machine.
Will tell you, or if you don't have shell access just run that from a system command.perl -V
If it is < perl 5.6 then use diagnostics won't work which is a possibly explanation.
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Seekers of Perl Wisdom