note syphilis I need a function that checks if file exists Seems to me that (on Windows) we can be assured that the specified $file exists if any one of the following three conditions returns true: <c> -T $file || -B $file defined -T $file defined -B $file </c> I was also wondering about using -f instead of -e. Are there any files on Windows that will report false for -f ? (If so, then we can't use -f as a test for existence.) Someone really ought to file a bug report about this because the <c>perldoc -f -X</c> documentation does *not* match the behaviour wrt '-e'. That documentation implies that <c>-e '""'</c> will return true only if a file named <c>""</c> exists. Either the behaviour ought to change to fit the documentation, or the documentation be amended to fit the behaviour. The documentation also implies that <c>defined -f '""'</c> will return false (but it doesn't). Here's what I ran as a check: <c> #!perl -l use warnings; print "-f:"; -f '""' ? print "Returned True (unwanted behaviour)\n" : print "Returned False (wanted behaviour)\n"; print "defined -f:"; defined -f '""' ? print "Returned True (unwanted behaviour)\n" : print "Returned False (wanted behaviour)\n"; print "-T || -B:"; (-T '""' || -B '""') ? print "Returned True (unwanted behaviour)\n" : print "Returned False (wanted behaviour)\n"; print "defined -T:"; defined -T '""' ? print "Returned True (unwanted behaviour)\n" : print "Returned False (wanted behaviour)\n"; print "defined -B:"; defined -B '""' ? print "Returned True (unwanted behaviour)\n" : print "Returned False (wanted behaviour)\n"; </c> And here's the output I got: <c> -f: Returned False (wanted behaviour) defined -f: Returned True (unwanted behaviour) -T || -B: Returned False (wanted behaviour) defined -T: Returned False (wanted behaviour) defined -B: Returned False (wanted behaviour) </c> I don't mind filing a bug report about this, but I'll wait for comments about that first (in case I've overlooked something). Cheers, Rob 979494 994560