Well yes. But if the only indicator that your network just failed is the $! and $^E then I'd suggest hiring better network administrator and getting better network monitors haha! Sorry couldn't resist. :-) I just get see the chaos that goes on around my work when the network dies. haha. I was running a script once when my network went down. Besides the thought of "Oh hell, did I just do that?" it was pretty obvious why my script failed.