note syphilis <i>Is there any explanation for that?</i><br><br>One explanation is that $file2 exists, but it wasn't created where you expected and you're looking in the wrong place for it. <br><br>You can use File::Spec to determine the absolute path of $file2 - untested: <c> use File::Spec; use warnings; use strict; my $file2 = 'whatever it is'; my $abs_path = File::Spec->rel2abs($file2); print $abs_path, "\n"; </c> Cheers,<br>Rob 1010768 1010768