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

I'd tweak draegtun's answer like this, to make it do exactly what was being asked:

my $buffer;
if ( open my $fh, '<', 'fileName' ) {
    $buffer = do { local $/; <$fh> };
    close $fh;
} else {
    $buffer = 'The file could not be opened.';
}