Apparently it's not a per-filehandle parameter, so that won't work.

Not that its important given this feature never worked :), but

$ perl -
IO::Handle->format_line_break_characters("\0");
^Z
Can't locate object method "format_line_break_characters" via package 
+"IO::Handle" at - line 1.
[download]

Using STDOUT->format_line_break_characters loads IO::Handle , but then format_line_break_characters dies -- it should have warned (so its not per handle, big deal)