Undo #15415, allow the faq people to catch up first.

p4raw-id: //depot/perl@15416

1 files changed, 16 insertions, 10 deletions

diff --git a/pod/perlfaq5.pod b/pod/perlfaq5.pod
index e7bcee2a22..701a757558 100644
--- a/pod/perlfaq5.pod
+++ b/pod/perlfaq5.pod
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 =head1 NAME
 
-perlfaq5 - Files and Formats ($Revision: 1.13 $, $Date: 2002/03/16 15:37:26 $)
+perlfaq5 - Files and Formats ($Revision: 1.12 $, $Date: 2002/03/11 22:25:25 $)
 
 =head1 DESCRIPTION
 
@@ -496,7 +496,6 @@ literals
 
 	open FILE, "<", "  file  ";  # filename is "   file   "
 	open FILE, ">", ">file";     # filename is ">file"
-	
 
 It may be a lot clearer to use sysopen(), though:
 
@@ -764,7 +763,21 @@ more fun to use the standard DB_File module's $DB_RECNO bindings,
 which allow you to tie an array to a file so that accessing an element
 the array actually accesses the corresponding line in the file.
 
-You can read the entire filehandle contents into a scalar.
+On very rare occasion, you may have an algorithm that demands that
+the entire file be in memory at once as one scalar.  The simplest solution
+to that is
+
+    $var = `cat $file`;
+
+Being in scalar context, you get the whole thing.  In list context,
+you'd get a list of all the lines:
+
+    @lines = `cat $file`;
+
+This tiny but expedient solution is neat, clean, and portable to
+all systems on which decent tools have been installed.  For those
+who prefer not to use the toolbox, you can of course read the file
+manually, although this makes for more complicated code.
 
     {
 	local(*INPUT, $/);
@@ -777,13 +790,6 @@ close the file at block exit.  If the file is already open, just use this:
 
     $var = do { local $/; <INPUT> };
 
-For ordinary files you can also use the read function.
-
-	read( INPUT, $var, -s INPUT );
-
-The third argument tests the byte size of the data on the INPUT filehandle
-and reads that many bytes into the buffer $var.
-
 =head2 How can I read in a file by paragraphs?
 
 Use the C<$/> variable (see L<perlvar> for details).  You can either