Considering that Joe_'s example uses the handle INPUTFILE, I don't have any problems with the implication, and I really don't see the need to come up with the snobby term correct idiom. (You consider a piece of code with error handling to be correct idiom? You're fired).

I really like the second one, thanks. Not for production use, of course. :)

Why not? It's not significant different from your correct idiom. It misses error handling (but then, so does your correct idiom), but that's easily handled: just add a // die "slurp: $!";.