Hi,

culprit is the wrong term, because this is intended behaviour on UNIX like systems. Many people don't know that, but the return code of the command at the pipe sink is propagated through the return code of the close on that filehandle.

Therefore it is not the best solution avoiding to close the filehandle, but be prepared for the valid return values.

Hava a look at man 2 close and perldoc -f close.

Best regards
McA