I believe this was introduced in Perl 5, so your definition of "new" is obviously a matter of perspective.

In fact, one of the things that I'm wondering is if you are supposed to be using "old-fashioned" file handles at all. They are more difficult to localize and pass as parameters. Using a "GLOB-ref", as these file handles are, is much more convenient, given even the one-character "penalty" for the $.

Update:
The "traditional" way is along the lines of: 
local (*FOO);
open (FOO, $foo_file) || die "Could not open $foo_file\n";
DoStuffOnHandle(\*FOO);
close (FOO);

[download]
Versus the new "lexical" way: 
my $foo;
open ($foo, $foo_file) || die "Could not open $foo_file\n";
DoStuffOnHandle($foo);
close ($foo);

[download]

In reply to Re^8: Determining what line a filehandle is on by tadman
in thread Determining what line a filehandle is on by Anonymous Monk

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