Perl Programming/Keywords/getc

The getc keyword
The getc function returns the next character form the input file attached to FILEHANDLE, or the undef when the end of file is reached or an error occured. An error will also set $!). If the FILEHANDLE is omitted, the function reads from STDIN. This is not very efficient and cannot be used by itself to fetch single characters without waiting for the user to hit enter.