in reply to perl dying without a trace

Just a suggestion - first I'd try replacing the variables you're outputing in that line one-by-one, and see if the content of any particular variable (or IO channel) is responsible.

After that, it's just another bug-hunt. The only thing I've learnt about a bug-hunt is to never give up the assumption that it's your code that sucks... ;)

Tom Melly, tom@tomandlu.co.uk