ken@ganymede: ~/tmp $ cat > pm_add_header_1 HEADER XXXXX YYYYY ZZZZZ ken@ganymede: ~/tmp $ cat > pm_add_header_2 AAAAA BBBBB CCCCC DDDDD ken@ganymede: ~/tmp $ perl -Mstrict -Mwarnings -MTie::File -e 'my @f; my $i = 0; tie @{$f[$i++]}, q{Tie::File}, $_ or die $! for @ARGV; unshift @{$f[1]}, $f[0][0];' pm_add_header_1 pm_add_header_2 ken@ganymede: ~/tmp $ cat pm_add_header_2 HEADER AAAAA BBBBB CCCCC DDDDD ken@ganymede: ~/tmp $