In addition to the other helpful postings:

I would really avoid changing the default handle to something else than STDOUT. In other words: Don't do select HANDLE followed by print $text, printf $format,..., say $text. Instead, pass the handle explicitly to the writing function, i.e. print $handle $text, printf $handle $format,..., say $handle $text. (Note: no comma between handle and function arguments.)

The reasons for that are simple:

• Much existing code expects that those functions write to STDOUT
• No spooky action-at-a-distance after select $handle
• File I/O looks clearly different to writing to STDIO.
• You can't forget to switch back to the default handle (select $oldhandle)

Alexander