Well, if the file is not getting created, and nothing shows up on the die, and you have the parens correct (grin) then I would suggest:

• Open is being blocked and hangin as it waits to open the file (not likely)
• Something is erasing the file after it is written.
• Something is intercepting your die messages.

The first two depend on the rest of your code. The last can be checked with a quick insert of:

my $tmperror = "/tmp/temp.error";
open(STDERR, ">$tmperror") or 
  die "Ironic: Cannot write errors to $tmperror: $!\n";
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Going through these one at a time:

• Open is being blocked and hangin as it waits to open the file (not likely)
  You're right -- this seems highly unlikely in light of the fact that the script continues and processes the next record in sequence just fine.
• Something is erasing the file after it is written.
  Maybe. It's the next angle to pursue I suppose. *grumble* I pretty well exhausted this one when I first learned of the problem... "Is the reaper functioning properly? etc."
• Something is intercepting your die messages.
  I tested the test die call and it died cleanly.

Spud Zeppelin * spud@spudzeppelin.com

• Something is erasing the file after it is written.
  Maybe. It's the next angle to pursue I suppose. *grumble* I pretty well exhausted this one when I first learned of the problem... "Is the reaper functioning properly? etc."

News: This appears to be what's causing it. It doesn't appear as if the reaper itself is malfunctioning, it appears that the files are just *vanishing* surreptuously. Either way, it doesn't appear to be a perl problem....

Spud Zeppelin * spud@spudzeppelin.com