The point is that all three behaviours (line-by-line, paragraph-at-a-time and all-in-one) all have their uses in solving different problems, so those nice Perl5 Porters have given us the flexibility to use all three (and a whole bunch more by setting $/ to the appropriate value).

As plaid notes, this is all explained in perlman:perlvar.

--
<http://www.dave.org.uk>

European Perl Conference - Sept 22/24 2000
<http://www.yapc.org/Europe/>