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How come when I open the file read-write it wipes it out?

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How come when I open the file read-write it wipes it out?

Because you're using something like this, which truncates the file and then gives you read-write access:

    open(FH, "+> /path/name");  # WRONG

Whoops. You should instead use this, which will fail if the file doesn't exist.

    open(FH, "+< /path/name");  # open for update

If this is an issue, try:

    sysopen(FH, "/path/name", O_RDWR|O_CREAT, 0644);

Error checking is left as an exercise for the reader.


Source: Perl FAQ: Files and Formats
Copyright: Copyright (c) 1997 Tom Christiansen and Nathan Torkington.
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