select((select(FILE), $/ = undef)[0]); is cargo-cultism. All you need is $/ = undef; (or more safely, local $/;).
Jeff japhy Pinyan,
P.L., P.M., P.O.D, X.S.:
Perl,
regex,
and perlhacker How can we ever be the sold short or the cheated, we who for every service have long ago been overpaid? ~~ Meister Eckhart