Problem with do statement

Anonymous Monk has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

I am attempting to open a file (or do some other operation), and if it can't be opened (or completed) for some reason, I need to print a message and then force the user to hit <ENTER> before the program exits. I have the following code:

$file="c:\\file.txt";
open(FILE,"<$file") || do {
  {local( $| )= 1;
    print "Error xxx\n";
    print "Hit <ENTER> to exit.\n";
    my $resp= <STDIN>;
  }# end local
  exit;
  }# end do
  @array=<FILE>;
  close(FILE) || die "close0: $!\n";
[download]

It works if I comment out the last two lines, however with them in I get an error? Ideas?

Comment on Problem with do statement Download Code

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Re: Problem with do statement by Joost (Canon) on Apr 18, 2005 at 14:27 UTC
the `open .. or do { .. }` is a single statement, and should be ended with a semicolon. `}; # end do` [download] should work. "What should it profit a man, if he should win a flame war, yet lose his cool?"	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Problem with do statement by Zaxo (Archbishop) on Apr 18, 2005 at 14:30 UTC
You need a semicolon after the end of the do block to finish the statement. I'm curious why you want to do that. The standard `open my $fh, '<', $file or die 'Error xxx';` would have the same effect, but could run unattended. After Compline, Zaxo	[reply] [d/l]
Re^2: Problem with do statement by revdiablo (Prior) on Apr 18, 2005 at 17:22 UTC
To throw a random guess, I would say he might be running the program by double-clicking on an icon from something like Windows Explorer. It opens the script in a terminal window, and executes, but then closes as soon as the program finishes. If there was an error message displayed, it would disappear nearly instantly.	[reply]
Re: Problem with do statement by Fletch (Bishop) on Apr 18, 2005 at 14:34 UTC
Missing semicolons aside, it might read more clearly as: `my $file = "..."; unless( open( FILE, "<", $file ) ) { print STDERR "Error opening '$file': $!\n" print STDERR "Hit <ENTER> to exit\n"; scalar <STDIN>; exit 1; } my @array = <FILE>; close( FILE ) or die "close '$file': $!\n";` [download]	[reply] [d/l]