If it is, it's shifting off @_ instead of @ARGV.

perldoc -f shift
...
If ARRAY is omitted,
shifts the @_ array within the lexical scope of
subroutines and formats, and the @ARGV array at file
scopes
...
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/J

That was it. It was shifting off @_. Thanks.

Sometimes it pays not to depend on the default targets.

I've banged my head on similar problems just because I didn't know or misunderstood what was being read.

So now I always use whatever is needed explicitly, e.g., shift(@ARGV). But that's just me because I basicly suck at programming ;). Not a pro by any means.

Need to debug a bit. What's "$@" that you're shifting? What's the value being shifted off?

UPDATE: sorry, I meant @_, not $@ ....

works for me so long as the argument is true i.e.,

works but of course the following do not:

./service.pl ''
./service.pl 0
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for the obvious reason that the empty string and 0 are not true.

$@ is empty. Im just using the name of the command line arg to read in a file of data. Replacing || with or didnt work. Like i said, the same code works in a different script. What else could cause a shift to die?

TIA. Joe.

We need to see more code.

You wrote: X or Y
1) Y is evaluated when X is false
2) X is empty (aka undef, aka false)
1+2=3) Therefore Y (the die) is performed.

So, what is the problem here? It is doing exactly what you told it to. If you want it to die on some other condition than the shift giving 0/undef/''/etc, then you need to specify that condition in your code.

Try specifying what to shift: $var = shift @array to ensure you're shifting the right array.