in reply to open file that is not in default directory

it did not seem open

How do you tell?  What exactly happened?  Did it die with "Can't open..."?  If so, print the system error message $! (and possibly also $^E) — it'll likely give you a clue what's wrong.

open (IN, "<", $in_file) or die "Can't open file '$in_file': $!";

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Re^2: open file that is not in default directory
by ambrus (Abbot) on Jan 17, 2011 at 10:31 UTC

    How do you tell? What exactly happened? Did it die with "Can't open..."?

    It did not die, but I also did not hear the pop sound, so either it didn't open or it had been open before.