#!/usr/bin/env perl use warnings; use strict; use diagnostics -traceonly; use autodie; open FOO, '<', '/tmp/foo/' or die "ACK! $!"; __END__ Uncaught exception from user code: Can't open '/tmp/foo/' for reading: 'No such file or directory' at - line 6 main::__ANON__("FOO", "<", "/tmp/foo/") called at - line 6 #### { no autodie qw(open); # open failures won't die open(my $fh, "<", $filename); # Could fail silently! # ^^^ add your "or die" to this open }