File Handling - Read and Write Access

[suruchimathur]

How do we open a file for both reading and writing in perl????
I found the following in the book Perl 5 by Example by David Medinets

open(FILE_HANDLE, +<FILENAME.EXT);
open(FILE_HANDLE, +>FILENAME.EXT);
open(FILE_HANDLE, +>>FILENAME.EXT);

Opens FILENAME.EXT for both input and output using FILE_HANDLE as the file handle.

But none of these seem to work..

[miller]

Hi suruchimathur,

That's because you're missing your string quantifiers around the second argument. Read here:

perldoc open
perldoc perlfaq5 - How come when I open a file read-write it wipes it out?

You can actually read all of perlfaq5 for a lot of useful tips and informations

- Miller

[KevinADC]

I found the following in the book Perl 5 by Example by David Medinets

Thats actually a pretty good book but unfortunately it does contain a few errors and ommissions. Like David never mentions you have to quote the various open() options, and there were some other examples that were just wrong. It's too bad because that book is good otherwise.

open(FILE_HANDLE, "+<FILENAME.EXT");
open(FILE_HANDLE, "+>FILENAME.EXT");
open(FILE_HANDLE, "+>>FILENAME.EXT");