{
  $/ = ";\n";
  while (<SCHEMA>) { 
    # everything up to/including the next ";\n" has been read into $_
    s/\s+/ /g;   # normalize all white space to " "
    if ( /create table (\S+)/ ) {  # table definition statement
        my $tablename = $1;
        ...
    }
    ...
  }
}