The following code uses Tie::File to remove those pesky null byte characters on the last line. I am using Fcntl in this snippet because Tie::File will create a non-existant file by default. The mode O_RDWR is used to read and write to an existing file. Read the perldoc for perlopentut for more on modes. Anyway, here's the code:

use Fcntl 'O_RDWR';
use Tie::File;

my @file;
my $file = shift || die "$0 <file>";
tie @file, 'Tie::File', $file, mode => O_RDWR or die $!;

my $null = chr 0;
$file[-1] =~ s/\Q$null\E//g;
[download]

Hope this helps. :)

jeffa

L-LL-L--L-LL-L--L-LL-L--
-R--R-RR-R--R-RR-R--R-RR
B--B--B--B--B--B--B--B--
H---H---H---H---H---H---
(the triplet paradiddle with high-hat)