Yup. Already did this. And from the command line it works fine. BTW, I am running the script as the user that is running the script or in other words, I have pretty much eliminated a permissions issue. Anyway, I am getting closer and I believe those of you who stated that there maybe a hidden character somewhere must be on the right track...

[qadmin@concon qw]$ perl -e '
$gamedir = "fortress";
$HOME    = $ENV{'HOME'};
$mapname = "2fort5";
if ( -f "$HOME/$gamedir/maps/$mapname.bsp" ) { print "It exists!\n" } 
+else { print "$!\n" };
'
It exists!
[qadmin@concon qw]$ perl -e '
$gamedir = "fortress";
$HOME    = $ENV{'HOME'};
$mapname = "2fort5qra";
if ( -f "$HOME/$gamedir/maps/$mapname.bsp" ) { print "It exists!\n" } 
+else { print "$!\n" };
'
No such file or directory
[qadmin@concon qw]$
[download]

Since the script uses other means whereby to get these values and it doesn't work vs my putting these values in by hand where I know there are no hidden characters I can deduce that there must be some hidden character slipping in somewhere in the runtime of the script. I don't see why there would be a '\r' in this thing but it is possible so I will try that out and see how I fare. A '\r' seems like the most logical thing that could be flubbing this up.

Thanks fellow monks. I will let everyone know the outcome once I am done.

----------
- Jim