my $output_file = 'hoser.txt';

# using three argument form and die if there's an error
open my $fh, '>', $output_file   or die "$output_file: open(w) failed: $!";
my @file_info = stat $fh;        or die "$output_file: stat failed: $!";
close $fh                        or die "$output_file: close(w) failed: $!";