$ cat file.txt
line one
line two
line three
$ cat open_and_read.pl
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;

# usually one does not put a $ on a filehandle variable
open ( MYFILE, "<file.txt" ) or die "could not be opening the file now :$!\n";
while ( my $line = <MYFILE> ) {
        print $line;
}
close ( MYFILE );
$ ./open_and_read.pl
line one
line two
line three