Similarly, not using "" around the variables is not specific to open. "$var" creates a new variable which is the string representation of the specified variable. It's almost never needed, and it's often undesireable.

In this case, your variable is already a string, and if it wasn't. If it wasn't, it would get converted to a string automatically.

I can think of two uses for "$var":

• When using a global variable as an argument. (For example, log_error("$@") is safer than log_error($@).)

• When you want to explicitely specifiy the context for an overloaded object. (For example, 4 + $obj and 4 + "$obj" could have different results.) You'd only use this when you know you have an overloaded object and you know you want the string representation in a numerical, boolean or list context (i.e. never).

---

---

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! —

• How do I compose an effective node title?
• How do I post a question effectively?
• Markup in the Monastery

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:
	&		&
	<		&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.