In typical Perl fashion (for me, anyway), I have no idea what the problem
was, but I got my script to work by using
foreach tablespace {
get list of datafiles
begin backup mode
call separate script to do fancy file copying with forks and children
end backup mode}
rather than putting all the fancy file copying directly in the script. Go
figure.
Thanx so much to all who sent help for my original question.
ltg
