diag diag(@diagnostic_message); Prints a diagnostic message which is guaranteed not to interfere with test output. Like "print" @diagnostic_message is simply concatenated together. Handy for this sort of thing: ok( grep(/foo/, @users), "There's a foo user" ) or diag("Since there's no foo, check that /etc/bar is set up right"); which would produce: not ok 42 - There's a foo user # Failed test 'There's a foo user' # in foo.t at line 52. # Since there's no foo, check that /etc/bar is set up right.