You don't really want death, but you do want to check the return value. Use logic like this:

my %config;
if (open FH, "user.config.file") {  # we have a previous save
  ... get %config from FH ...
  close FH;
} elsif ($! !~ /no such file/i) {
  die "config file: $!";
}
... now use %config ...
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This way, if the previous config is found, it's used. Otherwise, if it's not because it's absent, we die. Simple logic.

-- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker
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