Fantastic information. I was wondering though, you don't seem to be able to use the "filehandle" variable like a real file in a script. For example: I have this beginnerish script 
open my $fh2, '<', '/tmp/mlist.txt' or die "unable to open file '$file
+' for reading : $!";
open my $fh9, '>', '/tmp/listk.txt' or die "unable to open file '$file
+' for reading : $!";
while (<$fh2>) {
   my @fields = split(',', $_);
 local $" = ',';
       if ($fields[2] eq '1' || $fields[2] eq '0') {
             print $fh9 "@fields[4]\n" if /MONTHLY/ && !/,-,/;
             }
           }
           close $fh2;
           close $fh9;

[download]
This is clumsy but it works. However, if I try to use the variable assigned to a filehandle in the same way: 
open my $bpfh1, '<', \$forbpjoutput or die $!;
  while (<$bpfh1>) {
my @fields = split(',', $_);
my $fields;
 local $" = ',';

       if ($fields[2] eq '1' ||$fields[2] eq '0') {
             print "THESE ARE THE>>> $fields[4]\n" if /MONTHLY/ && !/,
+-,/;
        
close $bpfh1;
             }
          }

[download]
it does work but what happens is that it never stops printing the "file" or the fields4 It continues until out of memory. Is there a way to do this differently? This is probably a very basic question, but I don't have much experience with filehandles which are variables.

In reply to Re^2: removing the need for tmp files from script by novice2015
in thread removing the need for tmp files from script by novice2015

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