note cdarke Another difference not mentioned by the estemed monks above:<code> while (<FH>) {...} </code>assigns a line to $_ on each iteration of the loop, as mentioned, however <i>outside</i> a loop it does not. Just plain <code> <FH>; </code>does read a line from the file, but does not assign it to $_. So far as I know it is not stored. The assignment to $_ is magic that only occurs inside the condition of a [doc://while] loop. <code>$line = <FH>;</code> works as expected - the line which has been read is assigned to <code>$line</code>.<br><br>By the way, if you use [doc://sysread] the you should open with [doc://sysopen], but there is also [doc://read] which is used after our old friend [doc://open]. With [doc://read] you can specify how many characters to read, which can also be done with $/ (although I find [doc://read] easier to um, read). 853652 853652