So, after too much time stepping through with the debugger...

There is a bug in the function unixify (in VMS::Filespec). A control character is added to the end of certain length paths: 
47:         my($npath) = unixify($path);
  DB<7> x $path
0  '[DIR.aaaaa]'
  DB<8> s
File::Spec::VMS::eliminate_macros(/perl_root/lib/File/Spec/VMS.pm:48):
48:         my($complex) = 0;
  DB<8> x $npath
0  "/USERS/DIR/aaaaa\c@"     # <---- What's that \c@ doing there?!

[download]
As opposed to

47:         my($npath) = unixify($path);
  DB<9> x $path
0  '[DIR.aaaaaaa]'
  DB<10> s
File::Spec::VMS::eliminate_macros(/perl_root/lib/File/Spec/VMS.pm:48):
48:         my($complex) = 0;
  DB<10> x $npath
0  '/USERS/DIR/aaaaaaa/'

[download]

I don't know how to solve this, but as a workaround, if you always pass the device name to the catfile function, it works. So do this:
print File::Spec->catfile("USERS:[DIR.aaaaa]", "file"); # Include USER
+S:, or else this won't work!

[download]

In reply to Re: File::Spec bug on VMS by swkronenfeld
in thread File::Spec bug on VMS by swkronenfeld

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