How do I read paragraphs at a time with Perl?

Question

When I write

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;

while(  ) {
    print \"\\n-------------------------\\n\\n\";
    print;
    <>;
}
         


        

Answer 1

In your first script, with the $/ variable set to default "\n", the will only return one line at a time.

I believe the second script does what you want, it's just that <> won't terminate the read on a 'return' but rather on a due to your $/ setting (as someone else pointed out <> reads from STDIN but I think you already know that and are using it to regulate the output).

If you really want to regulate the output with 'return' then you need to do more with $/ in the loop.

while(  ) {
    print "\n-------------------------\n\n";
    print;
    $/ = "\n"; # default so that the following terminates the read on 'return'
    <>;
    $/ = ""; 
}