Hi Monks

I'm struggling a little with typeglobbing and filehandles. I've read this excellent node and more besides

What I can't figure out is why does this NOT work:

#assume files a.txt and b.txt exist and are normal, readable files.
use strict;
use warnings;

open(FILE_A,"<","a.txt") || die "Could not open file 'a.txt': $!\n";
open(FILE_B,"<","b.txt") || die "Could not open file 'b.txt': $!\n";

my @FH=(*FILE_A,*FILE_B);

for(my $i=0;$i<2;$i++){
   while(my $line=<$FH[$i]>){
      print "line: $line\n";
   }
}
exit(0);
[download]

(And it also doesn't work if you try any of the following:

• *FILE_A    -> \*FILE_A
• $FH[$i]    -> *$FH[$i]
• $FH[$i]    -> ${FH[$i]}
• *FILE_A    -> \*FILE_A && $FH[$i] -> *$FH[$i]

etc.. the point being I've tried quite a few things. Specifically the problem is that File::glob::csh_glob returns undef, except when you do

• *FILE_A -> \*FILE_A

when it returns "GLOB(0x52f9f0)" (obv memory address changes..), but then the output is line: GLOB(0x52f9f0)

However, this works!!

#...as before...
for(my $i=0;$i<2;$i++){
   my $fh=$FH[$i];      # <----**
   while(my $line=<$fh>){
#...as before...
[download]

And it still works whether

• *FILE_A --> \*FILE_A

or not...

Why? What's the difference? Am I missing something fundamental here? Or is this some kind of 'feature'? Or is the first syntax ambiguous, or.. what??

Cheers
why_bird

edit: Formatting issues!

edit: ">" to "<", thanks Fletch

---

---

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.