sub load_array($$) { 
    my ($a_ref, $file) = @_;
    open (FILE, $file) or die "Can't open $file:$!\n";
    @{$a_ref} = <FILE>;  
    close FILE;  
    chomp @{$a_ref};
}
[download]

Cheers,
Ovid

Update: I missed the ($$) on the sub call. In recent versions of Perl, this creates what is called a prototype and specifies the types of arguments to pass. This should allow you to call the subroutine just as you would call in a built-in function and it will behave like a built-in function. I've not had much use for them (but then, I've not had much use for map until recently).

# declare a subroutine
# takes two strings as arguments
sub load_array($$)
{
    # assign the two strings to two local variables, $a_ref and $file
    # so, if called as &load_array('foo','bar'), $a_ref eq 'foo' and
    # $file eq 'bar'.
    my ($a_ref, $file) = @_;

    # opens the file for read-only access
    # if the open fails, the program exits with the supplied message
    open (FILE, $file) or die "Can't open $file:$!\n";

    # the array pointed to by $a_ref is assigned the contents
    # of the file
    @{$a_ref} = <FILE>;

    # the file is closed
    close FILE;

    # newlines are removed from each element of the array
    chomp @{$a_ref};
}
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my($ref) = \@array;
my($file) = '/usr/dict/words';
&load_array($ref,$file);
# $ref now contains a reference to an array which contains
# all the words in /usr/dict/words, with the newlines
# removed.
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sub load_array($$)
    {
    #the first element we pass to this function is a 
    #array reference, the second is the name of a file
    my ($a_ref, $file) = @_;
    #attempt to open the file or quit executing our program
    open (FILE, $file) or die "Can't open $file:$!\n";
    #take all the lines in the file, and put them into the
    #array that $a_ref points to.
    @{$a_ref} = <FILE>;
    # close the file... duh I guess
    close FILE;
    # remove all of the carriage returns from the end of
    # each element in the array
    chomp @{$a_ref};
    }

# to call this routine
my @array;
&load_array(\@array, # pass in the reference to the array
            "test.txt"); # the name of our file
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sub load_array {
    my $file = shift; # the first parameter is our file

    my @array;

    open(IN, $file) or die "Can't open $file: $!\n";
    # for every line in the file...
    while(<IN>) {
        chomp; # remove the trailing carriage return
        # could also be chomp $_;
        push @array; # put it into our array
        # could also be push @array, $_;
    } # while
    close(IN);

    return @array;
} # load_array

# to run this routine...
my @array = &load_array("test.txt");
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Long answer, call it like this

  my @lines;
  load_array(\@lines, "file_name");
   # now do something with @lines.
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