What version of Perl are you using?

>c:\progs\perl561\bin\perl -e"open(my $fh, '<', \$buf) or die $!"
No such file or directory at -e line 1.

>c:\progs\perl580\bin\perl -e"open(my $fh, '<', \$buf) or die $!"
[download]

Scalars as files is a 5.8 addition. In previous version, it would try to open a file called something like "SCALAR(0x225300)".

PS - Please avoid placing your entire post in code tags. Start paragraphs with <p> instead.