yes the file is being created , but for whatever reason printf isnt putting anything into it.

i am just changing the code to show the date as a day with that method from Date::Day, the original source just prints the day and date in numbers. And that works just fine.

I dont have a test system, no.. its a relatively complex set of applications of which the perl script is just one component.

The perl script doesnt have use warnings; and  use strict; The code is all a little hacky tbh, its something i wrote years ago. I guess i should sit and down and sort it all out once and far all.. but the systems i use here rely on it running 24/7.

But i will take your advice and try and think of creating some kind of test environment. thanks.