That way works for me but I find this way of writing it to be more easily grokkable:

sub file {
    my $self = shift;
    @_ ? $self->{file} = shift 
       : $self->{file};
}
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update hmm, sorry, that doesn't do exactly what you want I suppose. But you could always substitute $self->{file} or even $self->file() in place of $file through the rest of the method ... but, as my physics instructor never said, "whatever applies sufficient surface tension underneath your watercraft to maintain it above the liguid-gas boundary."

perl -e 'print "How sweet does a rose smell? "; chomp ($n = <STDIN>); 
+$rose = "smells sweet to degree $n"; *other_name = *rose; print "$oth
+er_name\n"'
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