open(my $in_fh = IO::File->new, "<", $infile) 
or die "Can't open $infile: $!.\n";

close $in_fh;

my $chunk =~ s/[\f\r\n]//g;
my @statement = split '`', $chunk;

## %desc stuff here
my %data;
$/ = "`\n";
foreach my $line (@statement) {
..
}