The open is in an if statement. If the open evaluates false (the necessary condition for "or die" to make a difference) the rest of the block following the if should not execute. If the open fails, I want to do something else besides die-- especially since this is a Tk application (in Tk applications all callback errors are trapped, and the application will stay running). On a failed open I put a message to that effect in my status label.

Further research has indicated that the file is being read, since I can do:

foreach my $line (<MVMT>)
{
    print $line;
}
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and get the results. But if I do:

my @foo;
foreach my $line (<MVMT>)
{
   push( @foo, $line );
}
my $file = join('', @foo);
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then $file will be empty where @foo is completely as expected.

This is a Windows 2000 machine with ActivePerl's latest, if that makes a difference.