perl program?

for ( 1 . . 20)
{
open (FILEHANDLE, "< test.txt") or die "oops: $!";
my $char = getc FILEHANDLE;
print $char;
close(FILEHANDLE);
}

I saw this example in the internet. I try to run it by creating test.txt. But there's an error in the "FOR( 1..20). Can someone please help???

I need this to make this run as I'm working on a program that needs to store data that is inconsistent and output it in a different file.