List form for open

Perl's open function can open files or processes:

  open TR, "zcat -c $filename |";

  while (<TR>) {
       print "Line from compressed file: $_";
  }

Open can take a list as well on UNIX platforms.

  open TR, "-|", "zcat", "-c", $filename;

  while (<TR>) {
       print "Line from compressed file: $_";
  }