__DATA__ a Virtual File In Perl

It has been occurred a lot of times that one has to test a code using data from a file. It can be anything like checking for a pattern in a file to taking some input. If you want to check the code without opening the file and reading it. One can use the __DATA__ marker provided by perl as a pseudo-datafile.

Steps to follow:
1) At the end of the code use __DATA__ marker and copy paste or write the contents of the file you wish to test exactly from the next line of _DATA_.
2) Use while (){ -- your code here -- }.

#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;

while () {
chomp $_;
print "Found" if $_ =~ /(t\w+)/;
print $1;
}
__DATA__
hello there how r u

Output of the above program will be “there”.

Note: If you have any queries do leave your comments.

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