How else can I read from a file without using a while loop, testing for the EOF?

[Anonymous Monk]

How else can I read from a file without using a while loop, testing for the EOF?

Originally posted as a Categorized Question.

[S@nto]

Much less dangerous than undef-ing $/ globably (and maybe forgetting to set it back) local-ize it to a block that just does your file reading:


my $string = do{ local $/; <$filehandle> };

Or you can use $RS if you can't (or don't want to) remember $/.

[jdhedden]

I like the slurp method provided by IO::All:

use IO::All;

my @lines = io('file.txt')->slurp;

[Fastolfe]

A while (<FH>) { ... } block implicitely tests for eof. Are you trying to avoid the <FH> construct (which reads line-by-line, unless you've undefined $/ as mentioned by another poster), such as with binary files?

There are also the very standard and documented built-ins: read and sysread. These will read an arbitrary amount of data from a file.

[ickiller]

As i know, the most efficient method is to set the input record separator to nothing like the following snippet:

$/ = undef;
$wholefile = <FILE>;

Roli

[t0j0]

or maybe you can use file-slurp function..

use File::Slurp;

# to get your data into scalar variable
$output_string = read_file($filename);

# or this to get your data into array
@output_array = read_file($filename);