Assign contents of file to a scalar variable

[SlowMove]

I've got the following code to assign the contents of a file to an array:

open FILE, "inputfile" or die "Couldn't open file";
@lines=<FILE>
close FILE;

Does anyone know how to assign the entire contents of a file to a scalar variable?

[sugarkane]

open FILE, "inputfile" or die "Couldn't open file";
$content.=<FILE>
close FILE;

...will do the trick.

The important part is the .= in the line $content.=<FILE> , which means the next line of the file is appended to $content rather than $content being set to each line in turn.

[SlowMove]

Thanks for the help.

[moltar]

local (*HANDLE, $/, $_);
open(HANDLE, '< file.txt') or die $!;
my $string = <HANDLE>;
close(HANDLE);

[dkubb]

Here's my favorite way to "slurp" a file into a scalar:

open FILE, 'inputfile' or die "Could not open file inputfile: $!";
sysread(FILE, my $content, -s FILE);
close FILE or die "Could not close file: $!";

[SlowMove]

I apprecitate all the help. I wound up using some code I found searching usenet. It's really fast.

{ local $/; $content = <HANDLE> }