I agree with some of the other suggestions that logging to a file is probably a better way to go. Redirecting STDERR would be a good start, then as you progress further and want to log all kinds of things (as I'm sure you will in time) try Log::Log4perl. I've started using it instead of our home grown logging system and I like it a lot. Of course it might be total overkill for what you're attempting here though :-)