Hi!

Actually you only need to do this:

open(FILE1, $ARGV[0]) || die "Error: $!\n";
@lines = <FILE1>;
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This evaluated <FILE1> in list-context, and thus the whole file will be put in the @lines-array, one entry per line (or whatever you have assigned to $/)

So then, why didn't your code work as you expected ? Well - the line

@lines = $_;
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assigns the variable $_ to the array @lines. You are declaring the contents of @lines each and every time through that loop. It's almost the same with variables:

$foo = $_;
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this also redeclares the contents of $foo every time it is evaluated. With scalars we usually use the . (dot) operator or string concat. operator to avoid redeclaring its content:

$foo .= $_;
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or:

$foo = $foo . $_;
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So, with arrays we have something similar:

push @lines, $_;
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That will add to @lines instead of redeclaring its contents.

Autark