I'll disagree with some of the points provided so far.

• Use binmode on binary files regardless of platform. The fact that it might be a no-op on some platforms doesn't make it a portability problem. It is just not using it when you should that is a portability problem.
• Avoid signal handlers in Perl. Work has begun on making them reliable, but it isn't available yet.
• Newlines only cause problems when files are copied between platforms improperly. This again isn't a problem with writing portable scripts. It can be a challenge when writing scripts that tolerate inappropriate newlines no matter what platform they run on.

My suggestions on porting are more along the lines of "use modules" first, Perl second, and avoid everything else. So use IPC::Open3 not fork. Use File::Copy and mkdir not system. Use readdir not qx.

        - tye (but my friends call me "Tye")

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