No one has mentioned (I think) that filehandles are actually 'typeglobs'
Scalars, arrays, hashes, subroutines, filehandles and directory handles are all part of a typeglob.
$ perl -le'
$x = 987; @x = qw/a b c d/; sub x { print qq/z is "@z" "@_"/ }
*z = *x;
z( $z ) if $z == 987; ' z is "a b c d" "987"
yet so I thought I'd chime in on this. They also actually do have an associated sigil: '*'.
There's plenty of explanation on filehandles in typeglobs in the following documents:
perldoc perldata (Heading: 'Typeglobs and Filehandles')
The 'SEE ALSO' section of the data document points to more information on typeglobs:
See perlvar for a description of Perl's built-in variables and a discussion of legal variable names. See perlref, perlsub, and "Symbol Tables" in perlmod for more discussion on typeglobs and the *foo{THING} syntax.
John -- use Perl; program fulfillment
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