Some None of the other solutions will not correctly handle a list of files either (only the ones using $. will). And this one is easily extended to do so: perl -MTie::File -e 'tie(@file, 'Tie::File', $_) and splice @file, 31, 1 for @ARGV' file1 file2 file3 Update: zigdon is right. I should have tested.

Makeshifts last the longest.