I'm thinking you are using -s wrong. The code if ( -s file ){ checks for the existence of a file associated with the filehandle file. You either need to provide the file name (a string) or the correct file handle (MYINPUTFILE). This would have been caught had you included use strict;use warnings.

In addition, you should really be using the three-argument form of open and testing to see if your open operations fail. Fixing the block structural issues mentioned above, perhaps you mean: 

system "rm file2";
open(FILE2, ">", "file2") or die "Opening output failed: $!";

my $file = "file";

if ( -e $file and -s $file ){
    open(MYINPUTFILE, "<", $file) or die "Opening input $file failed: 
+$!";
    while(<MYINPUTFILE>) {
        my($line) = $_;
        chomp($line);
        print FILE2 "$line\n";
        print FILE2 "you need to do this\n";
        print FILE2 " \n";
    }
} else {
    print FILE2 "There is nothing to do\n";
}

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In reply to Re: if/while/else problem by kennethk
in thread if/while/else problem by ddrew78

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