switching default line terminator?

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

Is it possible to switch the line terminator for reading files in the middle of a program based on scope? I'm reading files that tend to have lines that span more than a single-line. So to do that I simply undef $/; Is it possible for me to redefine the line terminator once it's been undef'ed? I can't seem to get the $/ scoping to work, so once i have it undef'ed, i can't revert it. so...

#!/usr/bin/perl

undef $/;

&doStuff();
&foo();

sub doStuff {
   # want to read the file as a single string....
   open TMP, "<somefile.txt";
   my @file = <TMP>;
   close TMP;
   # do more stuff with that file...
}
sub foo {
   ## here i would want to read the file line-by-line
   
   $/ = '\n';
   open TMP, "<otherfile.txt";
   my @file = <TMP>;
   close TMP;


}
[download]

thanks in advance

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Re: switching default line terminator? by rafl (Friar) on Mar 21, 2006 at 14:08 UTC
Use the 'local' keyword `my $filename = 'foo.txt'; open my $fh, '<', $filename or die; my $content; { local $/ = undef; $content = <$fh>; } # $content contains the full file content now.` [download] Cheers, Flo	[reply] [d/l]
Re: switching default line terminator? by CountOrlok (Friar) on Mar 21, 2006 at 16:07 UTC
Try this: `#!/usr/bin/perl use strict; doStuff(); # no need for & foo(); sub doStuff { # want to read the file as a single string.... local $/; # if you don't set it to anything, it is undefined open TMP, "<somefile.txt"; my $file = <TMP>; # $file since you are putting the whole file into + a scalar, not a list close TMP; # do more stuff with that file... } sub foo { ## here i would want to read the file line-by-line open TMP, "<otherfile.txt"; my @file = <TMP>; close TMP; }` [download] -imran	[reply] [d/l]