I suspect that staging.log is playing tricks on you, but having a blank line at the end of the file. You can always check if the contents of the current instance of $line is empty before you assign it to $newline.

Something like this:

if( $line =~ /^\s*$/ ) {
  $newline = "Blank line.";
} else {
  $newline = $line;
}
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Or, better yet, you could play around with debug mode and step through the program as it runs.

elbieelbieelbie

If you're sure that's the only line in the file, a simpler and perhaps less error-prone method is to use:

$newline = join("",<PAGE>);
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In any case, printing out $newline as a debugging aid will probably help you track this problem down without sending a zillion messages.