Here's a suggestion for future development -- instead of creating the filename to be opened just in the open statement, create it ahead of time: 

  my $filename = # complicated work that builds filename
  open ( my $fh, '<', $filename ) or
    die "Unable to open $filename for read: $!";
  # ...
  close ( $fh );

[download]
You may hear about using autodie instead, but I like writing out the open statement and the die statement, as it gives the debugger me more information from the developer me. In this case, if it fails, you can immediately copy and paste the filename into an ls command and check to see if Perl can't find the file .. or if developer me is an idiot. :)

Alex / talexb / Toronto

Thanks PJ. We owe you so much. Groklaw -- RIP -- 2003 to 2013.

In reply to Re^3: 'open for read' fails as "no such file or directory" but file is there by talexb
in thread 'open for read' fails as "no such file or directory" but file is there by fasoli

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.