Its interesting to note that the DATA file handle only gets initialized when there an __END__ or __DATA__ tag is present, if they are omitted the filehandle isnt created. Try this:

use strict;
use warnings;
while (<DATA>) {
 print
}
print "--\n";
seek(DATA,0,0);
while (<DATA>) {
 print
}
# uncomment the data block for this program to work
#__DATA__
#test
#test
[download]

which outputs

readline() on unopened filehandle DATA at D:\perl\scratch\test__data__
+.pl line 3.
seek() on unopened filehandle DATA at D:\perl\scratch\test__data__.pl 
+line 7.
readline() on unopened filehandle DATA at D:\perl\scratch\test__data__
+.pl line 8.
--
[download]

So presumably whatever memory consumed by the filehandle can be avoided if that makes a difference. I doubt it if it does.

---
demerphq

_{<Elian> And I do take a kind of perverse pleasure in having an OO assembly language...}