Perl readline Function

Description

This function reads a line from the filehandle referred to by EXPR, returning the result. If you want to use a FILEHANDLE directly, it must be passed as a typeglob.

Simply readline function is equvivalent to <>.

Syntax

Following is the simple syntax for this function −

readline EXPR

Return Value

This function returns only one line in a scalar context and in a list context, a list of line up to end-of-file is returned

Example

Following is the example code showing its basic usage −

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

my($buffer) = "";
open(FILE, "/etc/services") or
   die("Error reading file, stopped");

$buffer = <FILE>;
print("$buffer");

$buffer = readline( *FILE );
print("$buffer");

close(FILE);

When above code is executed, it produces the following result −

# /etc/services:
# $Id: services,v 1.33 2003/03/14 16:41:47 notting Exp $