I know you are using Perl 5.6.1 but if you were using Perl 5.8...

perldoc -f open
#(snip)
File handles can be opened to "in memory" files 
held in Perl scalars via:

open($fh, '>', \$variable) or die "$!";

Though if you try to re-open "STDOUT" or 
"STDERR" as an "in memory" file, you have to 
close it first:

  close STDOUT;
  open STDOUT, '>', \$variable or die "Can't open STDOUT: $!";
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