You do not need to open it, but - according to the documentation - you should close it yourself:

"The filehandle is left open pointing to the contents after __DATA__. It is the program's responsibility to close DATA when it is done reading from it." (Special Literals, as linked by Anonymous Monk).

cheers, si_lence

In reply to Re^2: __DATA___ File Handle by si_lence
in thread __DATA___ File Handle by vivekbks

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