$ perl -e '{ local $/; } @x = <>; use Data::Dump; dd \@x' pm_1199549_test_file.txt [ "2017-08-01 20MICRONS 37744\n", "2016-08-01 20MICRONS 25966\n", "2016-04-20 20MICRONS 30807\n", "2016-04-01 20MICRONS 32780\n", ]