open(FOO, $file) || die "Couldn't open $file - $!\n";
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When no parens are present, you should use or die instead.

Personally, I always use parens everywhere so my code is littered with || dies.

I'm just surprised that I've never seen a problem using it exactly as I've written it above, which I do with great regularity. The docs say that the calling signatures are

open FILEHANDLE, EXPR
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and

open FILEHANDLE
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My syntax falls into the first case, but what constitutes an "EXPR"? I've got a string, the || operator, then the die -- does that qualify as an EXPR? I'll have to poke around the docs some more.....

Oh. Playing around with the right and wrong way shows me that my "|| die" syntax fails without die-ing.

I've got a string, the || operator, then the die -- does that qualify as an EXPR?

Yes, it does (as you seem to have discovered): since || is higher precedence than the comma, it's parsed roughly as open ( FILEHANDLE, ("filename" || die( ...) ) ); Since your string is always true, the die is never reached.




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If God had meant us to fly, he would *never* have given us the railroads.
    --Michael Flanders