-Attempts to read LENGTH I<characters> of data into variable SCALAR
-from the specified FILEHANDLE, using the system call read(2). It
-bypasses buffered IO, so mixing this with other kinds of reads,
-C<print>, C<write>, C<seek>, C<tell>, or C<eof> can cause confusion
-because stdio usually buffers data. Returns the number of characters
-actually read, C<0> at end of file, or undef if there was an error (in
-the latter case C<$!> is also set). SCALAR will be grown or shrunk so
-that the last byte actually read is the last byte of the scalar after
-the read.
-
-Note the I<characters>: depending on the status of the filehandle,
-either (8-bit) bytes or characters are read. By default all
-filehandles operate on bytes, but for example if the filehandle has
-been opened with the C<:utf8> I/O layer (see L</open>, and the C<open>
-pragma, L<open>), the I/O will operate on characters, not bytes.
+Attempts to read LENGTH bytes of data into variable SCALAR from the
+specified FILEHANDLE, using the system call read(2). It bypasses
+buffered IO, so mixing this with other kinds of reads, C<print>,
+C<write>, C<seek>, C<tell>, or C<eof> can cause confusion because the
+perlio or stdio layers usually buffers data. Returns the number of
+bytes actually read, C<0> at end of file, or undef if there was an
+error (in the latter case C<$!> is also set). SCALAR will be grown or
+shrunk so that the last byte actually read is the last byte of the
+scalar after the read.