If the OP fixed the quoting, then the file would be opened, read, and written to. Look at the -p and -i options in perlrun.

Update:

Won't that spawn another shell?

Yes, and you could do it without spawning another shell, with a bit more code. But the -p and -i flags make the job convenient, and if the OP doesn't care about the extra process, then neither do I :-)