I'm not sure exactly what problem you're still experiencing, but the following seems to do what you're asking for.

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

my $raw = 'c:/temp/delete.me';
my $out = 'c:/temp/newfile';
my $lines;
{
    open (RAW, "<$raw") or die "Couldn't open $RAW";
    local $/ = undef;
    $lines = <RAW>;
    close RAW;
}
$lines =~ s/^unwantedstuff//msg;
$lines =~ s/moreunwantedstuff//msg; 
open (OUT, ">$out") or die "Couldn't open $out for writing";
print OUT $lines;
close OUT;
[download]

I put the part that reads the file into a block so that making the $/ variable local is restricted to that section of the program. That's probably overkill if your entire script is not much bigger than this. If you start writing longer scripts, the fact that you've changed the value of this predefined global could give you problems. If you put it in a separate block as I've done here, it isolates the rest of the program from the effects of that.

Nuance

Baldrick, you wouldn't see a subtle plan if it painted itself purple and danced naked on top of a harpsichord, singing "Subtle plans are here again!"

while(<>){
  #examine one line
}
[download]

my $s=join '',<>;
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  if($s=~/foo\s*(\d+)\s*bar/s){
...
  }
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Applying a regex across multiple files

This is the anonymous monk who posted the question. Thanks to Nuance, juahonen, and lhoward for their help.

Sorry for the prior (partially unformatted) reply. I expected <CODE></CODE> to provide implied breaks.

Here's what I came up with. I don't fully grok the OO stuff, but the Owl, Ram, Llama and Camel books help enough to get simple stuff done. This is the first time I've looked for outside help - y'alls responsiveness is great.

Suggestions for improvements are welcome.

#!/usr/bin/perl -wT

# Specify Perl modules
use Time::localtime;
use Net::Ping;
use LWP::UserAgent;

# Define base scalars
my $time     = localtime;
my $targurl  = 'http://wwwsomesite/somefile.html';
my $targhost = 'www.somesite';
my $agent    = 'Mozilla/4.5 [en] (X11; I; Linux 2.0.36 i486; Nav)';
my $raw      = '/tmp/tempfile';
my $out      = '/var/www/outfile.txt';
my $pl       = 'thisfilename.pl';
my $desturl  = 'http://thiswebserver.org';

# Gen log header
printf " thisfile.pl : %02d-%02d-%04d    %02d:%02d:%02d\n", $time->mon
++1, $time->mday, $time->year+1900, $time->hour, $time->min, $time->se
+c;
prin
[download]

Same anonymous monk. Third time's a charm. Apologies again for prior attempted responses

my $raw = '/tmp/tempfile';
my $out = '/var/www/outfile.txt';

my $lines; {
   open (RAW, "<$raw")
      or die "Can't open $raw to strip unwanted stuff\n";
   local $/ = undef;
   $lines = <RAW>;
   close RAW;
   }
$lines =~ s/unwantedstuff //msg;
$lines =~ s/moreunwantedstuff //msg;

open (OUT, ">$out")
   or die "Can't open $out\n";
print OUT $lines;
close OUT;
[download]

This is the anonymous monk who posted the question. Thanks to Nuance, juahonen, and lhoward for their help.

Here's what I came up with. I don't fully grok the OO stuff, but the Owl, Ram, Llama and Camel books help enough to get simple stuff done. This is the first time I've looked for outside help - y'alls responsiveness is great.

Suggestions for improvements are welcome.

#!/usr/bin/perl -wT


# Specify Perl modules
use Time::localtime;
use Net::Ping;
use LWP::UserAgent;


# Define base scalars
my $time     = localtime;
my $targurl  = 'http://wwwsomesite/somefile.html';
my $targhost = 'www.somesite';
my $agent    = 'Mozilla/4.5 [en] (X11; I; Linux 2.0.36 i486; Nav)';
my $raw      = '/tmp/tempfile';
my $out      = '/var/www/outfile.txt';
my $pl       = 'thisfilename.pl';
my $desturl  = 'http://thiswebserver.org';


# Gen log header
printf " thisfile.pl : %02d-%02d-%04d    %02d:%02d:%02d\n", $time->mon
++1, $time->mday, $time->year+1900, $time->hour, $time->min, $time->se
+c;
print " thisfile.pl : target - $targurl \n";
print " thisfile.pl : agent - $agent \n";
print " thisfile.pl : patience, the next two steps may take some time\
+n";


# Ping host to make sure it's accessible
$p = Net::Ping->new( "icmp" )
     or die " thisfile.pl : Can't create new Net::Ping object: $!\n";%
+0
[download]