PHP has a handy function named file() that will read the contents of a file into a variable. I wrote a quick Perl version of the same function.

sub pfile {
   my $file = shift();
   my $ret = '';

   if (!-r $file) { return ''; } # Make sure the file is readable

   # Loop through each line and build the $ret string
   open(INPUT,$file);
   while (my $line = <INPUT>) { $ret .= $line; }
   close INPUT;

   return $ret;
}