Using <> when @ARGV refers to a file that doesn't exist will die (Update: Nope, sorry, my testing was flawed; it just warns as is clearly implied elsewhere in this thread -- thanks to runrig for clueing me in).

But local @ARGV isn't enough. You also need to reset $ARGV and the ARGV file handle. On Perl 5.6 and later,

    local(*ARGV);
    @ARGV= ($passwd);
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appears to work pretty well. Prior to 5.6, this fails in different ways depending on the version of Perl.

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