sorry I can't include more of my program here. Here is part of the sub routine where there error occurs. I have been running the program for a while, but always only one file handle open for writing at a time. 
print STDERR "saving block $writeCounter, \@ docID $docID ";
system("date");

my $postingList = '';
my $posting = '';

my $output = '';
my $savename = "/indexes/1_indexBlock_$writeCounter";
print STDERR "saving $savename\n";

open my $save, ">.$savename" or die "can't open save $!\n";
flock($save, 2) or die "can't lock save $!\n";

print STDERR "$savename is open\n";

foreach my $x  (sort (keys %inMemIndex))
{
$postingList = $inMemIndex{$x};
$posting = "$x $inMemIndex{$x}\n";
$output .= $posting;
}
print $save $output or die "can't write to save $!\n";
$output = '';
%inMemIndex = ();

flock($save, 8);
close $save or die "can't close save $!\n";


system("./logMergeManager.pl $writeCounter &");

$writeCounter++;
$totalWordSize = 0;

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when $writeCounter gets to 1342, the program dies on writing with the error: "can't write to save Inappropriate ioctl for device" i'm sorry i can't really give a condensed version of the code since this is part of a very large program. i added the flocks just to ensure that nothing is trying to open the file at the same time, its possible that i'm not using these correctly, though i was having this error before i included these. can anyone see any obvious flaws?

EDIT: changed '||' to 'or' as per Fletch's suggestion. re-running my code now.

EDIT: changed file handles as per ikegami's suggestion. seems to be working properly now :)

In reply to Inappropriate ioctl for device by downer

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