It looks fine, and it works for me when I run that. Are you sure you're using the files you think you are using.

By the way, \* in return \*$fh; is useless. return $fh; will return the same thing.

Starting with Perl 5.6, open accepts the mode and file name as seperate arguments. It's safer to use the three argument form and concatenating the mode and file name:

sub open_file {
        my ($mode, $file) = @_;
        my $fh = gensym();
        open $fh, $mode, $file or croak("could not open '$file': $!");
        return $fh;
}

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In reply to Re^3: modules, exporting, and indirect filehandles by ikegami
in thread modules, exporting, and indirect filehandles by eff_i_g

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