=. The
<
FH> read operation, like so many of Perl's functions and operators, can tell
which context it was called in and behaves appropriately. In general, the
scalar function can help. This function does nothing to the
data itself (contrary to popular myth) but rather tells its argument to
behave in whatever its scalar fashion is. If that function doesn't have a
defined scalar behavior, this of course doesn't help you (such as with
sort).
To enforce scalar context in this particular case, however, you need merely omit the parentheses:
local($foo) = <FILE>; # WRONG
local($foo) = scalar(<FILE>); # ok
local $foo = <FILE>; # right
You should probably be using lexical variables anyway, although the issue is the same here:
my($foo) = <FILE>; # WRONG
my $foo = <FILE>; # right