<> to read the file 

@ARGV array: This array is a special array preset by the Perl interpreter as the list of the invocation arguments. In other words,this is like any other array,but when your program starts,@ARGV is already stuffed full of the list of invocation arguments.

@ARGV = qw# a b c #;   # force these files to be read

while (<>){

   chomp;

   print "it was $_ that i saw";

}