#! /usr/bin/perl use strict; use warnings; use 5.010; # input is specified as file arguments; read them manually without magic my @files; for my $file ( @ARGV ) { open my $fh, '<', $file; while ( my $file = <$fh> ) { push @files, $file; } } chomp( @files ); # show read filenames and ask for input for my $file ( @files ) { print "say something: "; chomp ( my $input = ); say "$file: $input"; }