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4.38: Why don't my <<HERE documents work?

    Check for these three things:

    There must be no space after the << part.
    There (probably) should be a semicolon at the end.
    You can't (easily) have any space in front of the tag.

    If you want to indent the text in the here document, you can do this:

        # all in one
        ($VAR = <<HERE_TARGET) =~ s/^\s+//gm;
            your text
            goes here
        HERE_TARGET

    But the HERE_TARGET must still be flush against the margin. If you want
    that indented also, you'll have to quote in the indentation.

        ($quote = <<'    FINIS') =~ s/^\s+//gm;
                ...we will have peace, when you and all your works have
                perished--and the works of your dark master to whom you
                would deliver us. You are a liar, Saruman, and a corrupter
                of men's hearts.  --Theoden in /usr/src/perl/taint.c
            FINIS
        $quote =~ s/\s+--/\n--/;

    A nice general-purpose fixer-upper function for indented here documents
    follows. It expects to be called with a here document as its argument.
    It looks to see whether each line begins with a common substring, and if
    so, strips that substring off. Otherwise, it takes the amount of leading
    whitespace found on the first line and removes that much off each
    subsequent line.

        sub fix {
            local $_ = shift;
            my ($white, $leader);  # common whitespace and common leading string
            if (/^\s*(?:([^\w\s]+)(\s*).*\n)(?:\s*\1\2?.*\n)+$/) {
                ($white, $leader) = ($2, quotemeta($1));
            } else {
                ($white, $leader) = (/^(\s+)/, '');
            }
            s/^\s*?$leader(?:$white)?//gm;
            return $_;
        }

    This works with leading special strings, dynamically determined:

            $remember_the_main = fix<<'    MAIN_INTERPRETER_LOOP';
            @@@ int
            @@@ runops() {
            @@@     SAVEI32(runlevel);
            @@@     runlevel++;
            @@@     while ( op = (*op->op_ppaddr)() );
            @@@     TAINT_NOT;
            @@@     return 0;
            @@@ }
            MAIN_INTERPRETER_LOOP

    Or with a fixed amount of leading whitespace, with remaining indentation
    correctly preserved:

            $poem = fix<<EVER_ON_AND_ON;
           Now far ahead the Road has gone,
              And I must follow, if I can,
           Pursuing it with eager feet,
              Until it joins some larger way
           Where many paths and errands meet.
              And whither then? I cannot say.
                    --Bilbo in /usr/src/perl/pp_ctl.c
            EVER_ON_AND_ON

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