Thanks for the help. I knew about Tail::File. I looking to do this on my own, without a module. What is the reason that clearerr does not reset EOF on certain OS's? I am using rh3 by the way. I just don't get why this works in tmp and not in other directories. I know that I can reopen the filehandle each time, seek to the same place where I was in the file and read from there. Is opening a FH an expensive process in comparision to clearing EOF. I would think so. I wanted to keep this as minimalistic as possible. Going to test further, will let you guys know what I find.