Seems to me like you want to get rid of the map. You can replace map with another loop.

@array = map { EXPR } LIST;
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is functionally equivalent to

@array = ();
foreach (LIST) {
   push @array, EXPR;
}
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So

open (FH, "foo.txt");
my @words = map { split } <FH>;
close FH;
print "@words\n";
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can be written as

open (FH, "foo.txt");
my @words;
foreach (<FH>) {
   push @words, split;
}
close FH;
print "@words\n";
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Since <FILE> can be used as an interator, the following is more memory-efficient:

open (FH, "foo.txt");
my @words;
while (<FH>) {
   push @words, split;
}
close FH;
print "@words\n";
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