If your hard drive is full, you have more to worry about than a perl script failing to die 'gracefully'. I'm quite the opposite of you, if I saw a script that had every single print statement checked for an error, I'd probably not take a second glance at the code. Yes, error checking is nice, but there is a point at which it becomes ridiculous. So for me, I'd hope that the CPAN isn't cluttered with unnecessary error checking everywhere.

The last thing you need to worry about when a hard drive fills up is your perl script. Chances are your system won't manage itself, let alone your scripts. If you do error checking, it's probably better to simply check disk space before you begin and when you finish your operation. And that's only if your script outputs enough data to the hard disk to worry about. A script that throws a few kilobytes of data to disk shouldn't be worrying about disk space; it's the scripts and programs that will use a lot of disk space that should beware of this. And as previously noted, the problem should be seen ahead of time, not during the execution of a print statement.

Added minutes later... Oh yeah, about the open() and close() calls, of course those should be checked :)

In reply to Re: <rant>CPAN modules failing to check for write errors</rant> by saskaqueer
in thread <rant>CPAN modules failing to check for write errors</rant> by Anonymous Monk

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