you probably really want to just use backticks...

# send output to file
###either
  open (LOGFILE, ">$logfile") || die "could not open log\n";
  print LOGFILE `$tabfile`;  
  if($?) {
        print STDERR "$tabfile failed: $?\n";
        return;
  }
  close(LOGFILE);
##or
  `$tabfile > $logfile`;
  if($?) {
        print STDERR "$tabfile failed: $?\n";
        return;
  }
## end or

  print "foo1\n";
  exit (0);
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                - Ant