The other changes you suggested do prevent the error from happening.

No, it means an error never occurred in the first place.

What's setting $!?

Some earlier call or some internal call. You could use command line utility strace if you think it's relevant.

I do see how the "or die" on the join could be a logic error

Two problems:

• Your use of $! in the error message when it's not warranted.

• It does a bad job of detecting an error when one occurs. An error could occur and you wouldn't even know it. (False negative)

If you *also* want to make sure you received more than zero characters, that's fine. Add that check.

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