What's with the

for ( 1 .. $i ) {
   my $line = `head -$_ $filename | tail -1`;
   print $line;
}
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As any fule no, that should be written as

my $line;
my $ln = 0;
for ($ln = 1; $ln <= $i; $ln = $ln + 1) {
system ("head -$_ $filename | tail -1 > file.tmp");
open(FILE, "file.tmp");
my $tmp = $_;
while (<FILE>) {
chomp;
print $_;
print "\n";
} close FILE;
$_ = $tmp;
}
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I'm very proud of the masterful technique used to avoid clobbering $_