File::read mainly proposes functions for reading one or more files, with different options.

this module was created to address a quite specific need: reading many files, some as a normal user and others as root, and eventually do a little more processing, all while being at the same time compatible with perl 5.004. file::slurp addresses the first point, but not the others, hence the creation of file::read. if you don't need reading files as root or the post-processing features, then it's faster to directly use file::slurp.