my $page;
{
    local $/;
    open(my $fh, '<', $file) or die $!;
    $page = <$fh>;
}
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open PAGE, '<', $success or die "Can't open  $success : $!";
flock (PAGE, 1) or die "Can't lock $success for reading: $!";
local $/;
my $page = <PAGE>;
close PAGE;
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do{...} is a nice way to encapsulate the process.

my $page = do {
    local $/;
    open my $pagefile, '<', $success or die $!
    <$pagefile>;
};
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I often to this:

my $text = do { local( @ARGV, $/ ) = ( $file ); <> };
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although it's not as robust as the other solutions which die on error.

Hi,

perhaps you're doing it just for brevity, but I can't resist pointing out that it's a very bad idea to use flock() with numeric constants (e.g. 1). You should use the Fcntl module and import the flock constants:

use Fcntl qw/:flock/;
... open
flock($fh, FLOCK_EX);
# or:
flock($fh, FLOCK_SH);
...
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Aside from being portable, it has the added benefit of being more friendly on the eyes and less demanding to your memory.

Steffen

follow an advice from 'Perl Best Practices' and use Perl6::Slurp.

Enjoy,
Mickey

I follow my advice not to mess with unfinished programming languages and to-be-announced features :-)
Anyway, thanks for the advice, I'll explore it.

Everything you need except for locking, which this OP seems to need. Though if a lock isn't needed for the whole read/update data/write cycle, File::Slurp's atomic option may be enough.