But you can still avoid the -e test:

unlink $filename or $! == 2 or die "Cannot unlink $filename: $!";
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On my system, "2" is the code for a missing file for unlink. If you don't mind the regex hit, you could also use:

unlink $filename or $! =~ /no such/i or die "Cannot unlink: $filename:
+ $!";
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-- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker

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update:

This is actually faster than a separate test and unlink (one O/S call instead of two), and is less prone to race conditions. I'd actually scream at someone who did a -e/unlink pair instead of this in a security or performance related application.