I'm trying to pass a file name to a cgi script that will then delete the file. It seems that I'm getting the file name passed correctly, but retrieving it with the CGI.pm param() call doesn't seem to work with unlink(). However, explicitly assigning the same file name works so it's not a problem with permissions. I tried the following two methods:

1) This method (hardcoding the path and file name) works... 
    $fileName = "../../20080101.txt";
    printf ("File to be deleted: [%s]\n", "$fileName");
    unlink( $fileName );

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It prints... 
    File to be deleted: [../../20080101.txt]

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and deletes (unlinks) the file.

2) This method (passing the path and file name as a cgi parameter, $q is a CGI object) does NOT work... 
    $fileName = $q->param('deletetarget');
    printf ("File to be deleted: [%s]\n", "$fileName");
    unlink( $fileName );

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It prints... 
    File to be deleted: [../../20080101.txt]

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but doesn't delete (unlink) the file.

Can anyone explain this?

In reply to Why aren't these equivalent? by Anonymous Monk

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