3.2.18 close

close FILEHANDLE

This function closes the file, socket, or pipe associated with the filehandle. You don't have to close FILEHANDLE if you are immediately going to do another open on it, since the next open will close it for you. (See open.) However, an explicit close on an input file resets the line counter ($.), while the implicit close done by open does not. Also, closing a pipe will wait for the process executing on the pipe to complete (in case you want to look at the output of the pipe afterward), and it prevents the script from exiting before the pipeline is finished.[1] Closing a pipe explicitly also puts the status value of the command executing on the pipe into $?. For example:

[1] Note, however, that a dup'ed pipe is treated as an ordinary filehandle, and close will not wait for the child on that filehandle. You have to wait for the child by closing the filehandle on which it was originally opened.

open OUTPUT, '|sort >foo';     # pipe to sort
...                            # print stuff to output
close OUTPUT;                  # wait for sort to finish
die "sort failed" if $?;       # check for sordid sort
open INPUT, 'foo';             # get sort's results

FILEHANDLE may be an expression whose value gives the real filehandle name. It may also be a reference to a filehandle object returned by some of the newer object-oriented I/O packages.