ISAI student,

I have a common module that includes the following:

 sub Touch
 { my $file = shift;
   open ( my $TOUCH,">>",$file ) || Die_Rtn( 23, "$Caller: ! open fail
+ure on |$file|");
   close $TOUCH;
  }
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In your code you call it the same way as you do now. Make sure you have the ">>" or you'll clear the file. Note: On some older *nix systems, I've had to actually do I/O to the file. In that case, I'd 'print' a "\n" to the end before closing. I didn't like that solution, but it did work and didn't cause any *KNOWN* problems.

I have used mostly 'fork', so I've never tried this with Threads, so others may suggest an alternative, but this works and is faster than calling the system 'touch'. 'Die_Rtn' is also in the common module and determines if the failure is for the user or the system and acts accordingly.

Hope this helps!