#!/usr/bin/perl use strict; use warnings; use POSIX (); use File::Temp (); my $log = File::Temp->new( UNLINK => 0, DIR => '/the/path/to/your/log/folder/', # isn't this too fancy?! you don't need "nice" file names* ;-) TEMPLATE => POSIX::strftime( 'simplebr_%Y%m%d%H%M%S_XXXX', localtime ), SUFFIX => '.txt', ); print $log 'foo bar'; close $log;