# give the sub two parameters, $saveOk gets then the subs return value
my $saveOk = saveFile($frontPage, $xmlPrint);
# printing the scalar below should now either give 1 or nothing
# depending wether the file got saved or not
print "$saveOk\n";

sub saveFile {

open FH, ">$_[0]" or error($!, "not able to write to file $_[0]") and return undef; 
flock FH, 2; # take exclusive-lock
print FH "$_[1]"; # print to file-handle
close FH;

# if everything went fine, give 1 as an return value
1;
}