I tried out your code on my system and it works as expected. Something must be wrong with your shell?

Try these things

perl -e 'print "hi\n";' > junk
[download]

(or)

echo hi > junk
[download]

if you see output something strange is happening with your code.

If the code you showed is part of larger code then you might have to examine that piece as what you gave works just fine!

Unlikely situation but check your  $| anyways!

cheers

SK