I never use File::Copy, as it's not flexible, and just does the wrong thing in certain cases. There are no File::Copy equivalents to cp file1 file2 dir1, or cp -a file1 file2, but what's worse is that File::Copy::copy("file1", "file2") loses the execute bit:

#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;

use File::Copy;

my ($src, $dest1, $dest2) = ("/tmp/f1", "/tmp/f2", "/tmp/f3");

# Create source file, give it execute permission.
open my $fh, "> $src" or die;
close $fh or die;
chmod 0755, $src or die;
die "No execute permission on source\n" unless -x $src;

# Make sure destination files are removed.
if (-f $dest1) {unlink $dest1 or die;}
if (-f $dest2) {unlink $dest2 or die;}

# Set umask.
umask 022 or die;
system "cp $src $dest1" and die;
die "Lost execute permission using 'system cp'\n" unless -x $dest1;

copy $src, $dest2;
die "Lost execute permission using 'File::Copy'\n" unless -x $dest2;

__END__
Lost execute permission using 'File::Copy'
[download]

OTOH, I've been using Sys::Syslog for many, many years.

I tend to use modules if they are good, they are not doing something different than what they are supposed to replace, and if they don't require more typing. I still use my $text = `cat file`; - it does what I need it to do, and it's short.

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