You need $! because otherwise you only know that there's been an error of some sort and not what specific error occurred. Just grobbling through the open(2) manual page on OS X there's 22 distinct error codes in 32 different cases which can be returned at the C level.

The trailing newline is mostly an aesthetic choice though.

The cake is a lie.
The cake is a lie.
The cake is a lie.

In reply to Re^3: Handling multiple output files simultaneously using arrays of filehandles and filenames by Fletch
in thread Handling multiple output files simultaneously using arrays of filehandles and filenames by Cosmic37

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