For what it's worth, I usually do something like this to read compressed files:

if( $file =~ [\.(Z|gz)] ) {
   open($fh, "gunzip -c $file |" or die "Couldn't fork gunzip: $!";
}
else {
   open($fh, $file), or die "Couldn't open $file: $!";
}
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Sure, it's less portable, but IMHO, a whole lot easier to maintain. If you don't have gunzip, you can always use zcat.

thor