I have the following code segment in a much larger script: 


if ($myfile =~ /\.gz$/)
{
    open(MYFILE, "/bin/zcat $myfile |") || die("ERROR: Cannot open $my
+file for read: $!\n");
}

else
{
    open(MYFILE, "$myfile") || die("ERROR: Cannot open $myfile for rea
+d: $!\n");
}

my $myfile_timestamp = (stat(MYFILE))[9];

close(MYFILE);

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When I run the script that contains the above, I receive the following error at the "close(MYFILE)" line: 


gzip: stdout: Broken pipe

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But the script runs to completion without any other apparent issues. If I just copy/paste the above code into a standalone script and hardcode the path to $myfile, the error doesn't occur.

If I add "use autodie;" to the top of the script, the script exits at the "close(MYFILE)" line with the following messages: 


gzip: stdout: Broken pipe
Can't close filehandle 'MYFILE': '' at myscript.pl line 1014

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If I add the following code either before or after the timestamp assignment, the error doesn't occur: 


while (<MYFILE>)
{
    chomp($_);
}

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If I don't close the filehandle, the error doesn't occur and it doesn't seem to cause any other problems in the script.

If I change the assignment to $myfile_timestamp to a constant as opposed to reading an attribute from the filehandle, the error is the same.

Does anyone know what could be causing the broken pipe error? Is there any way I can debug it further? Reading from the pipe seems to provide a workaround but I'm not sure why it's necessary. This same code structure (doing either a standard open/read for a non-gzipped file or a zcat pipe open for a gzipped file) is used elsewhere in the script and doesn't ever give a "broken pipe" error.

In reply to zcat pipe gives "gzip: stdout: Broken pipe" error by Special_K

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