All, Here is my code:

#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use LWP::UserAgent;

my $ua;
my $req;
my $res;

$ua = new LWP::UserAgent;
$ua->agent("AgentName/0.1 " . $ua->agent);

#REQUEST

$req = HTTP::Request->new(GET =>'http://SOMEURLHERE');

#PASS REQUEST

$res = $ua->request($req);

#GET RESULTS


if($res->is_success)
{
   print $res->content;
}
else
{
   print "No response\n";
   print $res->status_line . "\n";
}
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Now the above code will print out just fine. However, if I try to add something like the following into the above code:

open(MYFILE, '/tmp/data.txt');
print MYFILE $res->content;
close(MYFILE);
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Or if I first assign the response data to a scalar and then do it:

my $returnData = $res->content;
open(MYFILE, '/tmp/data.txt');
print MYFILE $returnData;
close(MYFILE);
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The file "/tmp/data.txt" is an empty file (although I didn't check it with "ls -l" which I probably should have). I just did a "cat" on the file and it was blank. I am also pretty sure that the popen command is not affecting things because if I print out a simple string from the same Perl script, that gets captured with popen. It has something to do with this HTTP::Response module.

Extra tidbits:

• If something isn't working as expected, one should start by checking what error occured! open, print and close all indicate if they were successful, and if not, why they weren't.

• Declaring variables before they are used just introduces the possibility of errors. Instead of

  my $x;
  ...
  $x = ...;
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  do

  ...
  my $x = ...;
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• Speaking of declaring variables, don't use global variables for file handles. That hasn't been necessary for 10 years.

  open(my $fh, '>', '/tmp/data.txt')
      or die("Can't create file /tmp/data.txt: $!\n");
  print $fh $res->content;
  close($fh);
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• my $req = HTTP::Request->new(GET =>'http://SOMEURLHERE');
  my $res = $ua->request($req);
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  can be written as

  my $res = $ua->get('http://SOMEURLHERE');
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Hello All, Thank you so far. I took all your suggestions (e.g. decoded_content(), file handles, variable declarations, etc). It turns out though, that my hunch was right. I should have done an "ls -l" on the file and I would have discovered it was not an empty file. If you hadn't figured out already I am on a Unix/Linux system. Contrary to my original posting I thought I had done a "cat" when in actuality I had done a "more". Funny enough, regardless of whether I decode the content or not, something shows up with the "cat" command but not the "more" command. Also, I am able to edit the file in "vi" and see something. I am still stumped by the output though. Assuming that I know the contents of my file should be two lines of text separated by a newline. For example, "The Cat" and "The Dog" on separate lines:

If I "cat" the file, I get:

The Cat
The Dog

If I "vi" the file, I get:

@^T@^h@^e@^ @^C@^a@^t@^
@^T@^h@^e@^ @^D@^o@^g@^ @^

Just for giggles, I did an "od -c", and I got:

0000000 \0 T \0 h \0 e \0 C \0 a \0 t \0 \n \0 T
0000020 \0 h \0 e \0 D \0 o \0 g \0 \n

So for the $64 million questions, why is this showing up empty when I "more" the file, why is the calling program seeing it as empty as does the "more" command, and what's with these characters?

If I decode this with UTF8, should that not take care of it?

Your open statement

open(MYFILE, '/tmp/data.txt');
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is opening the file for reading only. (See open.) Try this:

open(MYFILE, '>', '/tmp/data.txt') || die("Cannot open /tmp/data.txt: 
+$!");
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