Unfortunately, $! is garbage in that example. It would only be meaningful if stat (via -e) failed. One definitely cannot count on it having any info about an unlink error.

I recommend 

for my $file (qw(files.txt data.txt)) {
    unlink($file)
        or $!{ENOENT}
        or die("Unable to unlink '$file': $!");
}

[download]

Or if one wants to clean up as many files as possible even if some can't be deleted, 

my $success = 1;
for my $file (qw(files.txt data.txt)) {
    if (!unlink($file) && !$!{ENOENT}) {
        warn("Unable to unlink '$file': $!");
        $success = 0;
    }
}

die("Unable to cleanup") if !$success;

[download]

In reply to Re^2: Unlinking a file when the file doesnt exist by ikegami
in thread Unlinking a file when the file doesnt exist by Anonymous Monk

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