and having to assign a non-integer value to avoid surprises doesn't fall in my category of "do what I mean".

:) Um, do not assign anything to $!, unless you're curious about what types of error messages your system can generate -- errno is there for the system to assign to

In reply to Re^3: Different behaviour of 'stat' function after assignment to $! (errno). by Anonymous Monk
in thread Different behaviour of 'stat' function after assignment to $! (errno). by muxxum

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