Welcome luckycat,

" ... print OUTFILE $_; works great..."

You have to be careful with the "$_", since in your processing you may modify it. Other monks have shone you a better way:

while (my $line = <$IN>)
{
    # ...
}
[download]

However if the line terminator is set to "\n" you can't use your test since you have only "\r" or something else at the end of line. Update: I don't know what I was thinking :-(

I think if you look at 'chop' it might help you with modifying the output.

while (my $line = <$IN>)
{   my $eof = chop( $line );    # This removes last char and saves
    if ( $eof ne "\r" ) { $line .= $eof; }
    if ( $NoWork == 0 ) { print OUTFILE "$line\n"; }

 DoYourWork:

    # ...
}
[download]

Your could use 'substr' to test the end of line, but I don't know which would be faster in your environment. It may be a good time to try 'Benchmark'.

Regards...Ed