Apparently this used to work in Perl5.8.9 but no in Perl5.10.0 anymore: $line is empty when run with 5.10.0, but the correct data, when run with 5.8.9. In 5.10.0, omit the extra ${}: So be careful, when updating to Snowleopard (comes with Perl5.10.0) and your scripts don't work as expected.