$path = "/home/user1/public_html/files/";

sub PrintEnter{

#submit customer info to text file
$file = "$path" . "customers.txt";
if (-e $file) {                                   #if the file exists...
print "$file<BR>exists";                  #checksum to see if it reaches
this if statement
  open(DAT, ">>$file");                #open the file for appending

else {
print "$file<BR>does not exist";    #checksum to ensure it reaches this else
statement
  open(OUTF,">$file");                 #open the file for output

print OUTF "$username|$customer\n";
close(OUTF);

I continue to get the checksum for the else statement through the browser:

/home/user1/public_html/files/customers.txt
does not exist

It never creates the file and if I create the file myself and run it I get
the same thing files does not exist and yes it is pathed correctly, I went
as far as doing a pwd to get the current directory and cutting and pasteing
it into the script.  I'm loosing my mind!!

First, your problem is a cgi one, not a perl one so this should be asked
in the cgi newsgroup comp.infosystems.www.authoring.cgi

Second, I would check the permissions of the file against the permissions that
the webserver is running under.  Your problem may lie there.

Kent

Jerry Raynor

[snip]

[snip]

Always, always, always check the success of open.  And always ask why it
failed if it fails.

    open(OUTF,">$file") || die "Can't open '$file': $!\n";

This will tell you what your problem is better than anyone here can
guess.  And it works for many other functions too.

perldoc -f open

Also check perlfaq3, "How do I debug my Perl programs? ".

--
Rick Delaney

[posted & mailed]

I don't see how this is a CGI problem.  It is a debugging problem.

It may, but it is usually a good idea to start with common debugging
techniques to reduce the number of wild guesses that need to be made.

My other post in this thread shows one such common technique and no wild
guesses.  :-)

--
Rick Delaney