I'll second steves's reply. If you really need to send a local file to a remote server and then delete that local file, then you should read up on Net::FTP (which should already be installed in your Perl distro) or Net::FTP::Common.

jeffa

L-LL-L--L-LL-L--L-LL-L--
-R--R-RR-R--R-RR-R--R-RR
B--B--B--B--B--B--B--B--
H---H---H---H---H---H---
(the triplet paradiddle with high-hat)