How do I read the contents of a small text file into a scalar in Perl?

Question

I have a small text file that I\'d like to read into a scalar variable exactly as it is in the file (preserving line separators and other whitespace).

The equivalent

Answer 1

From the Perl Cookbook:

my $filename = 'file.txt';
open( FILE, '<', $filename ) or die 'Could not open file:  ' . $!;

undef $/;
my $whole_file = ;

I would localize the changes though:

my $whole_file = '';
{
    local $/;
    $whole_file = ;
}