I'm sure the author will be able to explain it better, but here it goes:

• The -p option creates an implicit

  while(<>) { ... ; print }
  [download]

  loop around your code (which takes the place of the "...").
• The /e modifier causes the replacement part to be evaluated as a perl expression, so the

  " " . <>
  [download]

  is evaluated as "a space concatenated with the next line read from the input".

This makes more sense with an example. Let's say you have the file:

one
two
three
four
[download]

And run it through the code above. Here's what happens:

1. The "while(<>)" reads "one\n"
2. The s substitutes the "\n" in "one\n" with a space followed by the next line in the file ("two\n"), so $_ now contains "one two\n".
3. The implicit "print" (from the -p option) prints $_.
4. Repeat.

--ZZamboni

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