[00:28][nick:~/monks]$ cat 1139778.txt foo bar baz qux #### #!/usr/bin/perl use strict; use warnings; # Don't hard-code filenames in logic code my $file = '1139778.txt'; # Use the three-argument form of open() ... open( my $MYFILE, '<', $file ) or die "Failed to open $file: $!\n"; # ... and always check for success # Use parentheses to show we want the whole list of lines my $data = join '', (<$MYFILE>); print "Using \$data:\n$data\n\n"; # Go back to the beginning of the file seek $MYFILE, 0, 0; # No parentheses so we get one line at a time print "Using \$line:\n"; while ( my $line = <$MYFILE> ) { # chomp; # No need to chomp if you are printing the file out again print $line; } close $MYFILE or die "Failed to close $file: $!\n"; __END__ #### [00:29][nick:~/monks]$ perl 1139778.pl Using $data: foo bar baz qux Using $line: foo bar baz qux