Thanks for the response. Will the use of fudge only work though if I know the failure point? My script "fails" when the the script thinks that my file handle's reference count has reached zero before it should have done. I am not sure how I can catch this issue using fudge. Or should i just run the fudge procedure every time and it will eventually catch the information I need?

if (my $pid = open(...) {
  while(<FH>) {
  }
  fudge():
} else{ 
}
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Thanks

(The issue is made difficult by the fact that I can't reproduce the issue locally....but multiple users are seeing it. Makes debugging difficult!)

Thanks for the response. Will the use of fudge only work though if I know the failure point?

Use it in every place there can be a failure ... open or Fudge() ... close or Fudge() ... even readline or Fudge();

     while ( ! eof($fh) ) {
    defined( $_ = <$fh> ) or die Fudge("readline \$fh");
    ...
    }
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Heck, even enhance it to sparkle some $? extras

sub Fudge {
    my $pipe = $?;
    use Errno();
    my $msg = join qq/\n/,
      "Error @_",
      map { "  $_" } int( $! ) . q/ / . $!,
      int( $^E ) . q/ / . $^E,
      grep( { $!{$_} } keys %! )
    ;
    
    $^E = $! = $pipe;
    $msg .= join qq/\n/,
            map { "  $_" }
            "\n  #",
#~                 int( $! ) . q/ / . $!,
#~                 int( $^E ) . q/ / . $^E,
                'status($?) '.( $pipe ),
                'subexit($? >>8) '.( $pipe >> 8),
                'signal($? & 127) '.( $pipe & 127 ),
                'coredump($? & 128) '.( $pipe & 128 ),
                grep( { $!{$_} } keys %! ),
                q/ /;
    return $msg;
}
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