I don't know where you heard about: my $lines = do { local $/; <STATFILE> }; , but that uses two relatively rare constructs in the same statement! It is highly likely that you can write Perl code for a number of years and never need either "do" or "local".

That's a common idiom mentioned in perlfaq5 under the question "How can I read in an entire file all at once?". A Super Search confirms that this idiom is quite popular and well-known.