I would recommend using File::Temp for the actual problem.

For the general construct though, END blocks are the wrong answer. They fire when Perl stops running, not before you exit your subroutine. Instead you probably wanted to use ReleaseAction...

UPDATE
bbfu is right about when the delete should happen. But you could still use ReleaseAction as follows: 

$$$fh = ReleaseAction->new(
  sub {unlink $file or die "Cannot unlink $file: $!"}
);

[download]
Now whenever $fh goes away, the file is deleted. (There may be an order of action issue though.)-:

In reply to Re (tilly) 1: END blocks created at run time? by tilly
in thread END blocks created at run time? by lemmett

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