As an alternative, you could first check via -f $file that the file exists and return with a warning if it does not exist and die only if it exists yet the open fails.

But that is a race condition :) The file could become exist after you check with -f

use Errno ;

open ... or do {
    if( $!{ENOENT} ){
        warn "Uh oh '$file': $!" ;
        return;
    }
    die "Uh oh, unexpected '$file': $!";
}
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