If you have an empty line before the END, that empty line will get printed, which may not be what you want. You are right that it must match the first tag exactly though, if you say print <<"END";, the ending line must have ONLY 'END' in it, if you have extra spaces (even ones you may not be able to see at the end of the line), it won't work. This advice is doubly serious when you write things like this:

sub print_stuff {
    print <<"END";
    some stuff
    some more stuff
    END
}
[download]

This example doesn't work because your starting tag is "END" but your ending tag is " END". Leaving a blank line before the END isn't something I'm planning to start doing though, if you are using the here-docs right, you don't need it, if you need to always leave a blank line, then you are probably doing something wrong.

That brings up a good question. Would you be able to use regexp in a situation like that?

$buffer = <<"/\s*END/";

I don't have perl here at work, so I can't test it.

--Coplan

Short answer: No:

#!/usr/bin/env perl
eval {
    sub test {
        my $buffer =<<"/\s*END/";
        Eins
        Zwei
        END

        return $buffer;
    }
    print test();
};

if($@) {
    print $@;
}

print "\ndone\n";
__END__
Can't find string terminator "/\s*END/" anywhere before EOF at test.pl
+ line 3.
[download]

Longer answer in perlfaq4 as answer to the question "Why don't my <<HERE documents work?".

regards,
tomte

---

Hlade's Law:

If you have a difficult task, give it to a lazy person --
they will find an easier way to do it.

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Corrcted the code to look like zthe code I actually used ;)