in reply to Re^5: greater efficiency required (ls, glob, or readdir?)
in thread greater efficiency required (ls, glob, or readdir?)

In this case, cat outputs its own error with what would be $!.

cat: file-that-does-not-exist: No such file or directory

It might be cleaner to "exit 1 if $?" rather than die to avoid the useless "Died" message (but then you don't get the line number).

Update: Hmmm, when I hit 'reply', the node I replied to said only, Do you deem "Died at x.pl line y." acceptable?