From perldata,
...the tokens __END__ and __DATA__ may be used to indicate the logical end of the script before the actual end of file. Any following text is ignored...
Text after __DATA__ but may be read via the filehandle PACKNAME::DATA

So essentially sticking __END__ at line 5 in your script tells the perl interpreter that is the end of your script. Or to put it another way, every line after line 5 is now "commented out".

The __DATA__ token isn't usually used much in real-world tasks, but I think is very useful for creating a self-contained portable example of an issue you might be having, which you can then include with your question on PerlMonks.

#! usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;

my $search_term = 'Smith';

#no need to open the DATA handle, you can simply start reading it...
for my $line (<DATA>){
    print $line if $line =~ m{$search_term} ;    
}

__DATA__
Fred Smith
Jane smith
Bob Smitters
Joe Smith


__END__
This is the output I'm getting:
C:\Temp>perl test.pl
Fred Smith
Joe Smith

But I was expecting:
Fred Smith
Jane smith
Joe Smith

[download]

In reply to Re: What does this mean? by desemondo
in thread What does this mean? by biginingperl

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