Shell Programming and Scripting

local $/ = \32768; # or \"32768", or \$var_containing_32768

 Setting $/ to a reference to an integer, scalar containing an
               integer, or scalar that's convertible to an integer will
               attempt to read records instead of lines, with the maximum
               record size being the referenced integer. So this:

                   local $/ = \32768; # or \"32768", or \$var_containing_32768
                   open my $fh, "<", $myfile or die $!;
                   local $_ = <$fh>;

               will read a record of no more than 32768 bytes from FILE. If
               you're not reading from a record-oriented file (or your OS
               doesn't have record-oriented files), then you'll likely get a
               full chunk of data with every read. If a record is larger than
               the record size you've set, you'll get the record back in
               pieces. Trying to set the record size to zero or less will
               cause reading in the (rest of the) whole file.