For a while loop, I like to write the main exit condition into the while statement. There could be many ways for the loop to exit past the main, expected condition. However, I code the "most likely" case into the conditional statement.

Example:

my $line;
while ( (print "list of letters: "),$line=<>, $line !~ /\s*quit|exit|q
+\s*$/i)
{..do something with this line...}
[download]

I do recommend using named variables for all while loops that go into production code.

In the above, using "and" instead of the "," would be just fine. The truthfulness of a comma statement only has to do with the value of the last part.

You seem to believe that the OP wants to read manual input from STDIN², but - as kcott noted - the OP said files.

Please note that an empty diamond <> defaults to <ARGV> .

And ARGV only defaults to "-" ° if the array @ARGV is empty.

So if you want to read from STDIN, better say so explicitly by writing <STDIN> .

from perlop

Input from <> comes either from standard input, or from each file listed on the command line. Here's how it works: the first time <> is evaluated, the @ARGV array is checked, and if it is empty, $ARGV[0] is set to "-", which when opened gives you standard input. The @ARGV array is then processed as a list of filenames. The loop

while (<>) {
    ...                     # code for each line
}
[download]

is equivalent to the following Perl-like pseudo code:

unshift(@ARGV, '-') unless @ARGV;
while ($ARGV = shift) {
    open(ARGV, $ARGV);
    while (<ARGV>) {
        ...         # code for each line
    }
}
[download]

except that it isn't so cumbersome to say, and will actually work. It really does shift the @ARGV array and put the current filename into the $ARGV variable. It also uses filehandle ARGV internally. <> is just a synonym for <ARGV>, which is magical. (The pseudo code above doesn't work because it treats <ARGV> as non-magical.)

NB: took me a while to find this, IMHO this should be at least mentioned/referenced in @ARGV

Cheers Rolf
_{(addicted to the Perl Programming Language :)
Wikisyntax for the Monastery}

°) IIRC "-" is just an alias for STDIN which can be passed literally as argument at the command line

²) STDIN is not necessarily the keyboard, it depends how the program was started

That condition is so dense you missed that it devolves into an infinite loop of prints and warns. Fixed:

while (1) {
   print "list of letters: ";
   defined( my $line = <> )
      or last;

   $line !~ /\s*quit|exit|q\s*$/i
      or last;

   # Do something with $line.
}
[download]

Update: Added missing my.

The condition is not "dense".
The condition is whether or not the input line is "quit" or some form of that.
All that matters is the part after the last comma.

Works fine for me:

use strict;
use warnings;

my $line;
while ( (print "list of letters: "),$line=<>, $line !~ /\s*quit|exit|q
+\s*$/i)
{ print "doing something with $line\n"}

__END__
Example run:
C:\Users\xxx\Documents\PerlProjects\Monks>perl commandloopX.pl
list of letters: 234
doing something with 234

list of letters: asdf
doing something with asdf

list of letters: quit

C:\Users\xxx\Documents\PerlProjects\Monks>
[download]

Update: I guess this could be, using "and" instead of comma.
print() does return a true value, but nobody checks it.

while ( (print "list of letters: ") and defined ($line=<>) and $line !
+~ /\s*quit|exit|q
+\s*$/i)
[download]

The comma operator is completely fine in Perl. This is more common in C code.

Update: Oh, the parens around the print are required in order to get the prompt onto the screen.
I never use a while(1) statement except perhaps in a server process.

Another Update:
I did run your code. I did require the addition of a "my declaration" for $line.
Your code does work albeit as wordy and hard to understand as it is.
I am sure that there are many Monks who will disagree with style issues!

use strict;
use warnings;

my $line;
while (1) {
   print "list of letters: ";
   defined( $line = <> )
      or last;

   $line !~ /\s*quit|exit|q\s*$/i
      or last;

   # Do something with $line.
}
__END__
C:\Users\xxxx\Documents\PerlProjects\Monks>perl commandloopX3.pl
list of letters: adf
list of letters: 123
list of letters: q
[download]

Hi

> In the above, a "my" variable cannot be defined and be used within the same comma statement or logical "and" statement, hence the "my $line;" before the loop conditional.

In that case I'd prefer the c-style for(;;) loop ...

update

from https://perldoc.perl.org/perlsyn#For-Loops plus added my logic

for (my $i = 1; $i < 10; $i++) {
    ...
}
[download]

is the same as this:

{
    my $i = 1;
    while ($i < 10) {
        ...
    } continue {
        $i++;
    }
}
[download]

Cheers Rolf
_{(addicted to the Perl Programming Language :)
Wikisyntax for the Monastery}

Respectfully dissenting here ... I find last if(s) to be quite useful, because you can quite easily have as many of them as you like. Even if (as is quite usually the case ...) the actual "while condition" is a dummy, the series of last if statements which immediately follow it spell-out every one of the possible "exit conditions," one at a time, separately.