I hope to ear working solutions but i humbly suspect we'll not. I also suspect that this file handle is bring to existence only when logical end of the file is different from the physical one (as you have read in Special Literals) and this is due to the special token __DATA__

If no token is found (i suspect) that anyone that was reading the code close the file before any possible existence of a Perl filehandle. Infact DATA is not available during a BEGIN block, obviously. Also the fact that $. starts just after the token, with the value of 1 make me suspicious. I've still waiting for that trick solution.. but some test is still interesting (oneliners acts like plain file here):

perl -we "print tell DATA"
  Name "main::DATA" used only once: possible typo at -e line 1.
  tell() on unopened filehandle DATA at -e line 1.
  -1

perl -we "print tell DATA;__DATA__" -e"aaa" -e "bbb"                  
+  # uh?! no error!
  0

perl -we "print tell DATA;__DATA__" -e"aaa" -e "bbb" -MO=Deparse
  BEGIN { $^W = 1; }
  print tell DATA;
  __DATA__
  -e syntax OK
[download]

About the fool idea of opening $0 and just for curiosity, was my 7th post here.

L*

---

---

• Are you posting in the right place? Check out Where do I post X? to know for sure.
• Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags. Currently these include the following:

  <code> <a> <b> <big> <blockquote> <br /> <dd> <dl> <dt> <em> <font> <h1> <h2> <h3> <h4> <h5> <h6> <hr /> <i> <li> <nbsp> <ol> <p> <small> <strike> <strong> <sub> <sup> <table> <td> <th> <tr> <tt> <u> <ul>

• Snippets of code should be wrapped in <code> tags not <pre> tags. In fact, <pre> tags should generally be avoided. If they must be used, extreme care should be taken to ensure that their contents do not have long lines (<70 chars), in order to prevent horizontal scrolling (and possible janitor intervention).
• Want more info? How to link or How to display code and escape characters are good places to start.