Thanks for the responses - the Suffering from Buffering is a great read.

I have a question regarding select - doesn't all STDOUT go to the selected file handle unless otherwise stated?

for example:

#!/usr/local/bin/perl

open (OUT, ">/tmp/out.file");

$fh = select (OUT);
$| = 1;
select($fh);

print STDOUT "Hello!\n"; # prints to stdout
print "Hello!\n";        # prints to $fh = /tmp/out.file as no filehandle has been stated

So, in the above example, we have selected a filehandle - Am I correct in believing that unless explicitly stated, all output will be directed to OUT - the selected filehandle?