That will slurp the entire file into memory all at once, which is almost always what isn't desired.

Use the scalar, but do so in proper context. The OP is assuming that the return from each file handle read is an array, which it isn't. In a while() loop like the OP has, the file handle is read a line at a time, so the scalar holds everything up to end-of-line (including the newline character(s)). To use an array as you suggested would mean that you'd have to eliminate said while() loop.

use warnings;
use strict;

open my $fh, '<', "file.txt"
  or die "can't open the flippin' flabergastin' file!: $!";

while (my $line = <$fh>){
    chomp $line;
    print "something here $line\n";
}
[download]

Note that if the while() block is very small, a well-known Perl idiom is to use the built-in special default variable:

use warnings;
use strict;

open my $fh, '<', "file.txt"
  or die "can't open the flippin' flabergastin' file!: $!";

while (<$fh>){
    chomp;
    print "something here $_\n";
}
[download]

Edit: Wrongish answer deleted...

Still wrongish, unfortunately, because it makes stevieb's previously pertinent reply seem incoherent. Please see How do I change/delete my post?. The Golden Rule: Don't destroy context.

Still wrongish, unfortunately, because it makes stevieb's previously pertinent reply seem incoherent.

I see what you mean. Sorry about that, it was not my intent, stevieb was given credit after all. I put a reference to my mistake back in the node...


_{STOP REINVENTING WHEELS, START BUILDING SPACE ROCKETS!—CPAN} 🐪

I put a reference to my mistake back in the node...

Thank you very much. Some monks seem to make no effort at all to fix missteps and mistakes, leaving it to the janitors to clean up really egregious messes.

---

Give a man a fish:  <%-{-{-{-<

Unless you really want to print only selected lines of the file, you probably should use the line-by-line approach that you currently (unintentionally) wrote, and add a counter of the number of times this loop has executed, and end the loop after you have printed enough. This will work for any file regardless of size.

So I corrected my code and added this to create an array: my @line = <$fh>;

how can I add an if statement to check if the 7th element of the array does exist?

I've tried something like this but it did not work:

 if ($line[6]){
print "Support Group: $line[6]";
}else
print "Support Group:UNKNOWN $line[6]";
[download]

Thanks,