You probably just need to pass a reference to the array into the function:

your_function(\@lis_array);
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But if you really want to pass a file handle around then create a lexical filehandle and use that:

open my $kerlis, '<', $lis_file or die $!;
your_function($kerlis);

sub your_function {
  my $fh = shift;

  while (<$fh>) {
    # do something
  }
}
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People will recommend passing the typeglob into the function, but in my opinion that's a confusing hack that is no longer necessary with modern versions of Perl.