if ( ! -f $BASEDIR/nbssoammsg/tdt/src/tdt9999.cxx ) { system ( qq(cd $BASEDIR/nbssoammsg/tdt/src)); for $TDT (split/\s+/,`ls *.tdt`){ system (qq($BASEDIR/nbsstools/tdtgen/bin/tdtgen $TDT)); } else { print "Skipping tdtgen file generation -- if you want to force a regen\n"; print "of tdt files, delete $BASEDIR/nbssoammsg/tdt/src/tdt9999.cxx\n"; } } I get the following syintax error : syntax error at c:/Perl/myscript.pl line 315, near "else" syntax error at c:/Perl/myscript.pl line 329, near "}"