open (survdat, "+< /xxx ||cmn::dienice("$lang::open_file_write");
...
1. Your open statement is broken. Count the quotation marks...

That's not the only problem: parens are unbalanced, too. Maybe something like
    open (my $survdat, '+<', '/xxx') || cmn::dienice("$lang::open_file_write");
with  survdat replaced with  $survdat in the code thereafter might be closer to the mark, but hard to tell. (And I'm not sure just "$lang::open_file_write" is supposed to be.)