Ok, I tested with a .jpg file I had laying around. 
use warnings;
use strict;

open (my $fh, '<', "COVID19-Death02Apr.jpg") or die "$!";
binmode $fh;
my $binary = <$fh>; #entire binary file goes to Perl variable
print '',$binary;

[download]
Works just fine!

What you are overlooking is that you must set binmode before reading from the file. The Perl DATA file handle is an open file handle to the Perl program source that is seeked to the first character on the next line after __DATA__. This is buffered character mode I/O. You can't switch modes in the midst of a file.

In reply to Re^3: Error binmode() on unopened filehandle by Marshall
in thread Error binmode() on unopened filehandle by RedJeep

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