#this not dies perl -e 'open FH, ">", "/dev/full" or die $!; for (1..100) {print FH "line\n" or die $!;} ' #this too not dies perl -e '$|++;open FH, ">", "/dev/full" or die $!; for (1..100) {print FH "line\n" or die $!;} ' #only this dies, on close perl -e 'open FH, ">", "/dev/full" or die $!; for (1..100) {print FH "line\n" or die $!;}; close FH or die $!' No space left on device at -e line 1. #### # this still does not die perl -e '$|++;open FH, ">", "/dev/full" or die $!; for (1..819) {print FH "line\n" or die $!;} ' #but this dies! perl -e '$|++;open FH, ">", "/dev/full" or die $!; for (1..1000) {print FH "line\n" or die $!;} ' No space left on device at -e line 1. #### # perl -e 'print "$_\n" for 1..10000' | perl -ne '$num = ;print "$num:";open FH, ">", "/dev/full" or die $!; for (1..$num) {print FH "line\n" or die $!;};close FH;' .. :816 :818 :820 No space left on device at -e line 1, line 410.