Because when you open a in handler it opens file and assigns to it descriptor with first available number -- 2 (STDERR).

Update: try this:

#!/usr/bin/perl 
use strict;
use warnings;

close STDERR;
open FH, '>', 'log';
die "exit from program\n";
[download]

Update2: or more correct method:

#!/usr/bin/perl 
use strict;
use warnings;
use POSIX qw(dup2);

open FH, '>', 'log';
dup2(fileno FH, 2);
die "exit from program\n";
[download]

But actually I prefer using Log::Log4perl and its logdie method.

Update3: uhm, I just discovered, that when you open STDERR perl always assigns it to descriptor 2:

#!/usr/bin/perl 
use strict;
use warnings;
use POSIX qw(dup2);

open FH, '>', 'log';
dup2(fileno FH, 2);
open STDERR, '>', 'stderr';
# this would be placed into 'stderr', not into 'log'
warn "STDERR descriptor is:", fileno(STDERR), "\n";
die "exit from program\n";
[download]

---

---

Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!

Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.

Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.

Please read these before you post! —

• How do I compose an effective node title?
• How do I post a question effectively?
• Markup in the Monastery

Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:

a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr

You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)

	For:		Use:
	&		&
	<		&lt;
	>		&gt;
	[		&#91;
	]		&#93;

Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?

See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.