The DATA file handle is actually even a bit cooler than that. To set this up, Perl opens the program for read and then seeks to the first byte after the __DATA__ line. Reading from DATA means that you are actually reading the program file.

It is possible for the program to "read itself", i.e.: 

#!/usr/bin/perl
use warnings;
use strict;

## DEMO of reading myself

seek (DATA,0,0) or die "unable to seek $!";
print while <DATA>;


__DATA__
some data would go here

[download]
To re-read the DATA section, you could use a tell() to figure out where the initial DATA byte is and then later seek back to that initial byte offset.

In reply to Re^4: Making a variable from a number in front of a string by Marshall
in thread Making a variable from a number in front of a string by porsche5k

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