use strict;
use warnings;
use Data::Dumper;
use constant MAX_LINE_LENGTH => 25;

my $file = '/etc/hosts';
my @lines;
my $prev_line = '';
while( !eof DATA ){
  my $line;
  read DATA, $line, MAX_LINE_LENGTH;

  push @lines, $line;
}
print Dumper \@lines;


__DATA__
this is a line aqwewqe
short
shrt
short2
short3
this is a line asdas
this is a another very ling line lkjkdsa to skip qweqweqwewqewqewqeqwe
this is a line asdasd
this is a line lkjqwe
this is a very ling line lkjkdsa to skip qweqweqwewqewqewqeqwe
this is a line ad as