close(FILEHANDLE)

     close FILEHANDLE

             Closes the file or pipe  associated  with  the  file
             handle.   You  don't have to close FILEHANDLE if you
             are immediately going to  do  another  open  on  it,
             since open will close it for you.  (See open.)  How-
             ever, 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
             afterwards.  Closing a pipe explicitly also puts the
             status value of the command into $?.  Example:

                  open(OUTPUT, '|sort >foo');   # pipe to sort
                  ...  # print stuff to output
                  close OUTPUT;       # wait for sort to finish
                  open(INPUT, 'foo'); # get sort's results

             FILEHANDLE may be an expression  whose  value  gives
             the real filehandle name.