PHP: #!usr/bin/perl use strict; my $file_name="file.txt"; open (R, $file_name); while(<R>){ print $_; } close R; The above code opens a file in a READ-ONLY mode and then the while loop iterates through the file and prints every line as it is. You can do whatever operation you want to do within the while loop. Alternatively, you can feed the contents of the file into an array by doing PHP: my @file_contents = <R>; ## Replace the while(){} loop with this code and then perform array operations on it. You can open a file in Append mode and Write mode by doing PHP: open (R, ">>$file_name"); ## For appending to the file open (R, ">file_name"); ## For creating a new file, if it doesn't exist, else delete an existing file and recreate it from blank You can also open a file for reading by doing PHP: open (R, "<file_name");