This note is to echo what ikegami said- This is one of the most important things you have to do as you learn perl.. 'use strict;' - use that. Just believe..

Here's your script rewritten with strict.. (untested) 

#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;


open (FILE, 'data.txt');
while (<FILE>) {
   chomp;
   my ($name, $email, $phone) = split(/\s/); # split on whitespace
   print "Name: $name\n";
   print "Email: $email\n";
   print "Phone: $phone\n";
   print "---------\n";
}
close (FILE);
exit;

[download]

In reply to Re: can't open a file? by leocharre
in thread can't open a file? by tuvalb

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.