Did you try it to see if/how it works?
What do you mean "try it". Run perl in gdb?
Firstly, there have been a number of editions of "Programming Perl". I own the first three: that code doesn't appear on page 86 of any of those. Note: This is true for many Perl books. Providing more information than just the title is usually very useful and will generally get a faster (and better) answer.
Sorry about that. That's the 4th edition.
The code you've posted is almost identical to that in "perldata: Typeglobs and Filehandles".
That chunk of perldata is copied from the book verbatim (or is it the other way around). Alright, forget about it.

In reply to Local Typeglob by zergoid

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