Since then we have come up with the following to trap the error - although it has thrown up a strange error of not liking the "|| die" appearing on a separate line.

#!/usr/local/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings FATAL => 'all';

open(OUT, '>', "splat")
    or die "Opening (write) 'splat' $!";

while (1) {
        my $line = time().’’;

        # THIS WORKS
        print (OUT $line) || die "writing 'splat' $!";

       # But putting || die on another line does not. i.e:
       # print (OUT $line) 
       #       || die "writing 'splat' $!";
}

close(OUT)
    or die "Closing 'splat' $!";
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writing 'splat'

A file cannot be larger than the value set by ulimit. at u3.pl line 12.

You should always use low precedence or (in preference to ||) with the "or die" idiom. Also, you should normally avoid parens when calling print, so this is the recommended way to write it:

print OUT $line or die "writing 'splat' $!";
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For a working example, see my reply below.

Update: further notice that lexical file handles (e.g. $fh in my reply below) are preferred to the old global file handles (e.g. OUT in your example code).

# THIS WORKS
print (OUT $line) || die "writing 'splat' $!";

# But putting || die on another line does not. i.e:
# print (OUT $line) 
#       || die "writing 'splat' $!";
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That's strange. They both work for me.

Moreover, I see no reason why they would be different, in fact Deparse tells me they produce identical code:

% cat id1.pl
 print (OUT $line) || die "writing 'splat' $!";

% perl -MO=Deparse id1.pl
die "writing 'splat' $!" unless print OUT $line;
id1.pl syntax OK

% cat id2.pl
 print (OUT $line)
    || die "writing 'splat' $!";

% perl -MO=Deparse id2.pl
die "writing 'splat' $!" unless print OUT $line;
id2.pl syntax OK
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Though you could dig further into the root cause of the difference you experienced, I suggest you just stick to the low precedence or and avoid parens with print as described earlier.

...and if you need or want parens after print (not in the case you put the filehandle too, but in the case your list to be printed starts with something that need parens) to avoid the error print (...) interpreted as function at .. use the following trick:


       print +(43-1);
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HtH
L*

There are no rules, there are no thumbs..
Reinvent the wheel, then learn The Wheel; may be one day you reinvent one of THE WHEELS.