Open a file

liljohn has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

I am running Windows 10 and am using Perl 5.8. I can not open a file from a Perl script no matter how I try. My most recent code is as follows:

 my $filename = "C/Perl64/Perl Scripts/Names.txt"; 
open(my $fh,'<:encoding(UTF-8)', $filename) || die "Could not open fil
+e";
[download]

Comment on Open a file Download Code

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Re: Open a file by Corion (Patriarch) on Aug 12, 2019 at 18:08 UTC
Let Perl tell you the reason why it failed: `my $filename = "C/Perl64/Perl Scripts/Names.txt"; open(my $fh,'<:encoding(UTF-8)', $filename) \|\| die "Could not open file '$filename': $!";` [download]	[reply] [d/l]
Re^2: Open a file by liljohn (Initiate) on Aug 12, 2019 at 21:29 UTC
Thank you so much, Once I used your suggested code and saw the message "no such file" I realized I had omitted part of the file path.</pP	[reply]
Re^3: Open a file by stevieb (Canon) on Aug 12, 2019 at 21:45 UTC
Don't you love it when a plan comes together so easily? :) By the way, welcome to the Monastery, liljohn! I've just got a small suggestion here... you've done an excellent job of following this site's posting syntax, but it appears as though you've missed a couple of closing tags. The `</p>` closing tag in this post, and the `</code>` tag in your Original Post (OP) don't have the `>` in place. Any chance you could go back and edit them in? If not, our Editors will get notified and will have to do that for you. Keep up the good work here. A newcomer responding back to a helpful post goes a long way.	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Open a file by dasgar (Priest) on Aug 12, 2019 at 20:15 UTC
I think that the issue is in your first line of code. You're missing the ':' in the path. It probably should be: `my $filename = "C:/Perl64/Perl Scripts/Names.txt";`	[reply] [d/l]
Re^2: Open a file by GrandFather (Saint) on Aug 13, 2019 at 01:37 UTC
I know you are trying to help, but we like to teach fishing instead of simply giving away fish. Corion does an excellent job of teaching fishing (Re: Open a file) with immediate positive results (Re^2: Open a file) which will help liljohn many times in the future. This lesson is teaching the importance of writing good diagnostics into the code which can be used in many different ways and is a great lesson in Perl laziness (do it right the first time). Optimising for fewest key strokes only makes sense transmitting to Pluto or beyond	[reply]


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