Thank you for taking the time to reply and suggest improvements. Taking them in order:

I have been trying to remember to use single quotes but I keep forgetting. I will keep working on that.

If I understand you right, I should do something like this: 


my $pref = "preferences";
my $new_pref = "preferences.tmp";
my $bak = "preferences.bak";

{
  my $pref = "preferences";
  my $new_pref = "preferences.tmp";
  my $bak = "preferences.bak";


  open PREF, "< $pref";
  open NEW_PREF, ">> $new_pref";

  while (<PREF>) {
    s#$image_directory/.*#$wallpaper"#;
    print NEW_PREF $_;
  }


  rename ($pref,$bak);
  rename($new_pref,$pref);
}

chdir "/home/jivy" or die "Cannot change to jivy: ($!)";

if (`ps -e | grep icewm-session`) {
    exec "icewmbg -r";
    } else {
    exec "icewm-session";
}

[download]
Meaning that I don't use specific close PREF and close NEW_PREF commands.

I had not seen the three-argument form of open but I looked it up after reading your post. That makes sense.

There is no extra tmp file hanging around. It is renamed to preferences in line 35. But I will do the suggested research for future use.

In reply to Re^2: Random Desktop Background for IceWM by Texadan
in thread Random Desktop Background for IceWM by Texadan

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