#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;
use Data::Dumper;
use IO::All -utf8; # Turn on utf8 for all io

my @lines = io('file.txt')->chomp->slurp;      # Chomp as you slurp

print Dumper \@lines;

__END__

$ perl test.pl
$VAR1 = [
          'line 1',
          'line 2',
          'line 3',
          'line 4'
        ];