You really don't want to be managing an unknown number of file handles 'retail'. Instead think of using a collection of handles. The easiest way is probably an array, although depending on the nature of the rest of the task a hash keyed by file name may be a better choice. Consider:

use strict;
use warnings;

my @fileNames = ('file1.txt', 'foo.txt', 'wibble.wav');
my @fileHandles;

for my $filename (@fileNames) {
    open $fileHandles[@fileHandles], '<', $filename or die "Can't open
+ $filename: $!";
}

while (@fileHandles) {
    for my $file (@fileHandles) {
        my $line = <$file>;
        
        if (! defined $line) {
            # Hit end of file
            close $file or die "File close failed: $!";
            $file = undef;
            next;
        }
        
        # do something with $line
    }
    
    @fileHandles = grep {defined} @fileHandles;
}

[download]

which opens a bunch of files then enters a loop that reads a line from each file in turn and does something with each line.

True laziness is hard work

In reply to Re: Naming file handles with variables? by GrandFather
in thread Naming file handles with variables? by sinee

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.