I was working on a program recently that had a most peculiar bug. It was writing information to a logfile, and the logfile would remain empty. At first I suspected that IO::Tee was at fault (or, more specifically, the way I was using it was at fault).

Out of desperation, I wrote a little script showing how I was using it, and I posted it the other day. I didn't really expect much to come of it. I got a couple of helpful responses, and then, three days later, tilly posted a follow-up that nailed the problem on the head.

At the end of the program, I had to call an external program to finish off the processing. I didn't see the need to use system, because error checking of that external program is handled in another way. So I just execed the program in place. At that is what was causing my logfile to go empty. I was pulling the rug from under the script before it had a chance to close the file properly.

Time and again, I am amazed by the breadth and depth of tilly's knowledge. We have had retirement announcements from people in the past. Some have come back. Others have not.

Ben, if you have to leave, I will miss you.