in reply to Reopen file when contents changed?

just once per second? performance is not going to be an issue: use the aproach that seems simpler for you.

I would go for... 

sub first_line_from_file {
  my $fn = shift;
  open my $file, "<", $fn
    or die "unable to open file $fn";
  scalar <$file>
}

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update: added the scalar in front of <$file>. blazar, thanks for pointing it out.

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Re^2: Reopen file when contents changed?
by blazar (Canon) on Jun 07, 2005 at 14:05 UTC 
    sub first_line_from_file {
  my $fn = shift;
  open my $file, "<", $fn
    or die "unable to open file $fn";
  <$file>
}

    [download]
    To return the first line I'd say 
      scalar <$file>;

    [download]
    (The semicolon is cosmetic. But I consider it good style)
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