If you have an empty line before the END, that empty line will get printed, which may not be what you want. You are right that it must match the first tag exactly though, if you say print <<"END";, the ending line must have ONLY 'END' in it, if you have extra spaces (even ones you may not be able to see at the end of the line), it won't work. This advice is doubly serious when you write things like this:

sub print_stuff {
    print <<"END";
    some stuff
    some more stuff
    END
}

[download]

This example doesn't work because your starting tag is "END" but your ending tag is " END". Leaving a blank line before the END isn't something I'm planning to start doing though, if you are using the here-docs right, you don't need it, if you need to always leave a blank line, then you are probably doing something wrong.

We're not surrounded, we're in a target-rich environment!

In reply to Re: Re: Shell v Perl by jasonk
in thread Shell v Perl, here-doc as stdin by set_uk

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.