Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!newstop!texsun!convex!news
From: tchrist@convex.COM (Tom Christiansen)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl
Subject: Re: Reading a file into a string
Message-ID: <1991Jan30.005821.13013@convex.com>
Date: 30 Jan 91 00:58:21 GMT
References: <5231@taux01.nsc.com>
Sender: news@convex.com (news access account)
Reply-To: tchrist@convex.COM (Tom Christiansen)
Organization: CONVEX Software Development, Richardson, TX
Lines: 22
Nntp-Posting-Host: pixel.convex.com

From the keyboard of avi@taux01.nsc.com (Avi Bloch):
:How do I read an entire file into a string other than  the obvious way of
:reading it line by line and concatenating it.

I answered in mail, but for the record: 

1) $foo = `cat $file`;

2) open (FILE, $file);
   undef $/;
   $foo = <FILE>;
   close(FILE);


The cat method costs a bit more, but both are more costly 
than iterating over the file a line at a time.

--tom
--
"Hey, did you hear Stallman has replaced /vmunix with /vmunix.el?  Now
 he can finally have the whole O/S built-in to his editor like he
 always wanted!" --me (Tom Christiansen <tchrist@convex.com>)