open the file handler for reading the file after u close the fh for writing. In your script the file pointer is pointing to new line hence is not printing any data open (FILE1_TEMP, "+>$file1_temp") or die "Could not open $file1_temp: $!"; print FILE1_TEMP "hello, world!"; close FILE1_TEMP; open (READFILE1_TEMP, "$file1_temp") or die "Could not open $file1_temp: $!"; while (<READFILE1_TEMP>) { print $_; } close READFILE1_TEMP;