Whereas, and TIMTOWTDI: 
#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;
use 5.016;

# Modified from parent and MidLifeXis' 1043331

open my $in, '<', "a.txt";
print firstline("b.txt");

sub firstline {
    say "at_: @_";
    my $file = shift;
    my $retval = open (my $FH, '<', $file );
    $retval && return scalar <$FH>;
  # no close() required
}

[download]
prints: 
at_: b.txt
from b

[download]

If you didn't program your executable by toggling in binary, it wasn't really programming!

In reply to Re^2: what is the return value by ww
in thread what is the return value by arasumg

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