<posted & mailed>

Craig Files wrote:

> open (DEF, "<$input_def") || die "$0: cannot read $input_def\n";
> $/ = undef;           # read the entire file...
> $_ = <DEF>;           # ...into memory
> close(DEF);

Tobias and Mike both gave you nice examples with exception handling; in the 
most simple, direct from perl translation:

  lines = IO.readlines(input_def)

This does everything you do in your perl code; it dies (with an exception) 
if there is an error, and (AFAIK) the stream is automatically closed after 
reading.  It's also only one line long, and much easier to understand :-)

-- SER