Your success with append mode might be Perl version/system dependent. On my macbook, I still get the black hole when I reopen in append mode.
I mean 
     open($fh1, '>', \ substr($s1, length($s1)) )
       or die "Can't restore fh1";

[download]
replace '>' with '>>' and \ substr($s1, length($s1)) with \$s1 and you'll get 
     open($fh1, '>>', \$s1)
       or die "Can't restore fh1";

[download]
I'm also not comfortable with the idea that "one shouldn't expect" a file handle to work with dup. As far as I know, Perl doesn't give me a way to tell if a file handle was created on a string.There is no way to gracefully degrade or warn the user if they hand my subroutine a file handle and it just happens to be backed with a string.
Well I'm not saying that open is being reasonable here. IMO, yes, it should work, or at least warn if it doesn't. That being said, there is a way to tell the difference
Returns the file descriptor for a filehandle, or undefined if the filehandle is not open. If there is no real file descriptor at the OS level, as can happen with filehandles connected to memory objects via "open" with a reference for the third argument, -1 is returned. - fileno

In reply to Re^3: Redirecting/Restoring of Memory Files by Anonymous Monk
in thread Redirecting/Restoring of Memory Files by ELISHEVA

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.