I would suggest using flock, turning on Data::Dumper's Useqq option, and adding more error checking

Excellent advice! Whenever I use logging for troubleshooting, as a matter of reflex, I tend to further turn on autoflush on the logfile.

BTW, in addition to providing portable locking across Unix and Windows, flock enriches Perl poems, as demonstrated by pjf in this immortal line:

join flock($other,@chickens) if split /from others/;
[download]

from his classic Perl poem my @chickens.