You won't win any performance, but still the following (untested code) should work: 
while (my @chunk = get_chunk(\*IN, 10)) {
  # etc
}

sub get_chunk {
  my $fh = shift;
  my $count = shift;
  my @result;
  push @result, scalar <$fh> foreach 1..$count;
  return @result;
}

[download]
UPDATE
Erk. It shouldn't work. :-(

Lots of attempts to read from a possibly closed filehandle. Try this with STDIN and see some interesting behaviour. :-(

Try the following (tested) code: 

my $sub = chunker(\*IN, 10);
while (my @chunk = $sub->()) {
  # Do something amusing
}

sub chunker {
  my $fh = shift;
  my $count = shift;
  return sub {
    my @ret;
    while (@ret < $count) {
      my $line = <$fh>;
      if (defined($line)) {
        push @ret, $line;
      }
      else {
        $count = 0;
      }
    }
    return @ret;
  };
}

[download]

In reply to Re (tilly) 1: Reading multiple lines? by tilly
in thread Reading multiple lines? by rdw

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