If you want to try to avoid this in the future, you might consider using File::Spec, one of Perl's core modules. Given a list of directories, it will assemble the complete path for you:

use File::Spec qw(catdir catpath);
my $volume = 'C:\\';
my @directories = 'HELP', 'PerlScripts';
my $file = 'Test2.dat';

$directory = catdir( @directories );
my $datafile = catpath( $volume, $directory, $file );
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