How about this instead? You are correct in your observation of the open statement in my sample. In my hurry to clean it up I removed all literal filenames and handles so as not to obfuscate the issue.

The FH has been cleaned up to:

open (my $FILE, 'c:/test/ldif.ldf') || die "can't open 'ldif.ldf': $!";

open (my $OUTPUT_FILE, '>export.txt') || die "can't open 'export.txt': $!";

open (my $FILE1, 'c:/test/some.csv') || die "can't open 'some.csv': $!";

The reality of your comment is that it is more than a bit anal, but I do understand the need for clarity in these matters and I do appreciate the candid response.

Sometimes we don't have the time we need to make things pretty.