Perl file exists check

[jaceke]

Hi,
how can I check if file exist or not ?
 
Here's a short test/example:
 
if (-e '/etc/passwd')
{
printf "File exist !\n";
} else {
printf "File not exist !\n";
}
 
That works great !
 
but next a short test/example:
 
my $f1 = '/etc/passwd';
 
if (-e $f1)
{
printf "File exist !\n";
} else {
printf "File not exist !\n";
}
 
and that NOT working ! Why ?
 
I use quotes because my path contain special characters.
 
Ragards,
MattX