I can only speculate what you are meaning, cause you neither cite sources nor do you show code.

  DB<102> open $x, ">", "/tmp/tst";

  DB<103> $x
 => \*main::$x

  DB<104> STDIN
 => "STDIN"

  DB<105> \*STDIN
 => \*main::STDIN

[download]

As you can see do lexical file handles actually hold references to globs, i.e. '\*'.

I never heard that this is generally "considered good syntax", but if you need to store "normal" file handles in variables you'll need this construction.

 my $x = \*STDIN

see also perldata#Typeglobs-and-Filehandles

Cheers Rolf

(addicted to the Perl Programming Language)

In reply to Re: why is it considered good syntax to put \* before STDIN or STDOUT by LanX
in thread why is it considered good syntax to put \* before STDIN or STDOUT by Anonymous Monk

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