Programming Perl, 4th Edition

print

print FILEHANDLE LIST
print FILEHANDLE
print LIST
print

This function prints a string or a comma-separated list of strings. If set, the contents of the $\ ($OUTPUT_RECORD_SEPARATOR) variable will be implicitly printed at the end of the list. The function returns true if successful, false otherwise. The current value of $, (if any) is printed between each LIST item. The current value of $\ (if any) is printed after the entire LIST has been printed.

To use FILEHANDLE alone to print the content of $_ to it, you must use a real filehandle like FH, not an indirect one like $fh. FILEHANDLE may be a scalar variable name (unsubscripted), in which case the variable contains either the name of the actual filehandle or a reference to a filehandle object of some sort. As with any other indirect object, FILEHANDLE may also be a block that returns such a value:

print { $OK ? "STDOUT" : "STDERR" } "stuff\n";
print { $iohandle[$i] } "stuff\n";

If FILEHANDLE is a variable and the next token is a term, it may be misinterpreted as an operator unless you interpose a + or put parentheses around the arguments. For example:

print $a – 2; # prints $a – 2 to default filehandle (usually STDOUT) print $a (– ...