in reply to 'strict refs' + 'strict sub' = suck.

Don't use the antique 'open' method, use the IO::File module instead:

use strict;
use IO::File;

my $f = new IO::File "filetoread.something", "r"
           or die "Can not open input file";
while (<$f>)
{
  # do stuff ...
}

undef $f; # close the file
          # note that you don't even have to do this
          # this is optional because the file will be
          # closed when Perl script finishes. I am just
          # forcing an early file closure here.

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Re: Re: 'strict refs' + 'strict sub' = suck.
by chromatic (Archbishop) on Oct 25, 2003 at 17:39 UTC

    Why not use open? Why is it "antique"?

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Re: Re: 'strict refs' + 'strict sub' = suck.
by vek (Prior) on Oct 25, 2003 at 20:52 UTC

    Roger, you've pimped the use of IO::File over open once before in Re: Removing duplicates from list yet you never state why you think IO::File is better. I'm honestly curious as to why you prefer one over the other. Is it just because IO::File uses OO syntax?

    -- vek --
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      Since Perl 5.6.0 we can perform file operations using a scalar - which is quite convenient to pass around in function calls. For example - 

      open my $fh, ">output.txt"
    or die "Can't create output: $!";
print {$fh} "Hello world!\n";
close $fh;  # if don't close, then it will be closed
            # automatically when $fh is out of scope.

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      However the above code is not valid in version of Perl prior to 5.6.0, which I am still using on some of the production boxes. However the following will work on Perl prior to 5.6.0. 
      my $fh = IO::File "output.txt", "w"
   or die "Can not create output: $!";
print $fh "Hello world!\n";
undef $fh;

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      My preference of IO::File over open is on the Perl version compatibility and also ease of use.

      This is only my personal perference however.

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