Fletch, thanks for the tips. Can you explain a little further, the whys & wherefores? The examples I used for the open were files, not dirs. Is that the difference. Files use || & dirs use 'or', or is it something else?
If I'm building a list of files to open, I wouldn't think I would EVER want the newline there. I used the chomp over the chop for just that reason, so I wouldn't lose a significant character of the name.