My script retrieves some data from a server into a variable. Here's a snippet that prints the data to STDOUT:

       my $ua = init_lwp();
           my $uri = create_query2($url, $newdate);
           my $resp_dat = execute_query($ua, $uri);

           print $resp_dat;
[download]

This works fine, but I want to insert a subroutine that I wrote separately into the script to parse the data and write to a file. The subroutine worked when I was testing it on its own with a sample data file. Now that I have the $resp_dat variable, I don't know how to send it to the subroutine. Or rather, I'm not sure how to receive it properly inside the subroutine. A modified version of the above snippet looks like this:

           my $ua = init_lwp();
           my $uri = create_query2($url, $newdate);
           my $resp_dat = execute_query($ua, $uri);
           subgen($resp_dat);
[download]

Here's the routine:

sub subgen {
        my($aref) = @_;
    my($cur_segno) = 0;
    my(@sst) = ();
    
        #open(FILE, my $aref); #or die "Cannot open: $file\n";
    
    my $hdr = <>; #read in the first line 
    chomp $hdr;
    my @colnames = split /, ?/, $hdr; #split the header into an array
    
    open GENFILE, '>genfile.txt';
        open INFOFILE, '>infofile.txt';
    
    my $sst_mean;
    my %fronts;
    
        while (<>) {
            chomp;
        next unless s/\"//g; # this will skip the first line and remov
+e any "
            my(@colvalues) = split /, ?/; #read in the data
    
        @fronts{@colnames} = @colvalues;
        
            if ($fronts{segno2} == $cur_segno) {
                print GENFILE "$fronts{lon}, $fronts{lat}\n";
        push(@sst, $fronts{sst});
        
            } else {
            if ($cur_segno != 0) {
                      print GENFILE "END\n";
            
                    print GENFILE "$fronts{segno2}\n",
                            "$fronts{lon}, $fronts{lat}\n";

            $sst_mean = calc_mean( \@sst );
            print INFOFILE  "$sst_mean\n",
                    "$fronts{segno2}, ";
        } else {
                    print GENFILE "$fronts{segno2}\n",
                            "$fronts{lon}, $fronts{lat}\n";

            print INFOFILE "$fronts{segno2}, ";
        }
        $cur_segno = $fronts{segno2};
        @sst = ();
            }
    print GENFILE "END\n";
        }
        
           
       

        close(FILE);
    close(GENFILE);
    close(INFOFILE);
}
[download]

I've tried receiving it as @_ within the sub, but I think I'm invoking the <> incorrectly. Advice?