I would write it in its own nice-named function, even if the function body contained the idiom.

Cute, and I note that the module File::Slurp doesn't do it that way!

I agree with tye. What if you were doing this in an older version of Perl and the problem was brought to your attention? You would have to find and fix every usage. But if using a module, fix it once. The module might grow and handle accomidations, nits, and other issues. Everyone benifits from that experience.

BTW, I recall not using File::Slurp somewhere, because, like yours, it doesn't do binmode.