foreach $x (@x) {
        open ($x, ">>$log") or die;
        print while (<$x>);
        printf "%7d",$x;
    }
    close ($x);
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Your code doesn't make a whole lot of sense; you appear to be using $x for more than one thing, and it's probably going to lead to problems. I'm not sure how this code can be working as you say it is. I will attempt to explain.

You say you want to append the elements of an array, @x to your file, $log. This means @x is filled with strings, perhaps long, perhaps short. You then iterate over them (foreach $x (@x)) and open a handle (open($x, ">>$log")) based on the string in @x. This means, if @x = ('foo bar baz', 'STDIN') you just opened the filehandles foo bar baz and STDIN. The STDIN example is an important one, as it illustrates the problem with this logic; by opening it, you just closed the STDIN you already had open. This same concept applies to any filehandle you may have open in your script. Also, this method of opening a filehandle is a symbolic reference, which is disallowed under use strict. You are using strict, right?

Once you've opened your file for appending you then go on to read from it (print while (<$x>)). You cannot read from a file opened for appending, and given what you're trying to do, I'm not sure why you're trying. I think you intended to print $x to the filehandle $x; there is a better way to do this, and I will cover it further down.

Finally, you close $x, but you do it outside of the foreach loop. At that point $x is undefined; you should have seen a warning about attempting to close undef; you are using warnings, right?

Now, as I mentioned, there is a much easier way to do this. You say you want to append the contents of @x to $log, and format each element with %7d:

open(my $logfh, ">>$log")
    || die("Unable to open log file \"$log\": \l$!.\n");

print $logfh join(" ", map { sprintf "%7d" $_ } @x);

close($logfh);
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I specifically used $logfh like that to illustrate a point; if you're opening a filehandle in a loop or other block, you don't need to use some random string (such as what's in $x).

Hi I understand what you are saying here...but my code works too.....hmm ... but the line print $logfh join(" ", map { sprintf "%7d" $_ } @x); is erroring out

print $logfh join(" ", map { sprintf "%7d", $_ } @x)

Note the comma after sprintf's format and $_. It was not in my original code. Also, that does not print a newline, which may be important.

foreach $x (@x) {  
   open ($x, ">>$log") or die;  
   print while (<$x>);  
   printf "%7d",$x; 
}  

close ($x);
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open (OUTPUT, ">>$log") or die "Error opening file $log ($!)\n";
my $line = join ' ', @x;
print OUTPUT $line, "\n";
close (OUTPUT) or die "Error closing file $log ($!)\n";
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Hope that this helps. :)

Hi there!!, Thank you for a very quick reply...that indeed is a very good suggestion..and it it works fine too..I wanted to try "printf" so that I have more control over the output. :-{>

print takes a list, so there's no need to loop. You can take advantage of $", the list separator,

{
    local $" = ' ';
    open my $lgh, '>>', $log or die $!;
    print $lgh "@x", $/      or die $!;
    close $lgh               or die $!;
}
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Unless he's altered $" elsewhere (and I doubt it, because if he were familiar with $" I believe he'd have answered his own question already), there's no need to set it. It defaults to a single space.

Also, there is no need to explicitly use $/, either. If he wants line-ending, he can just use "\n", which Does The Right Thing on non-UNIX platforms.

--rjray